The consensus after Arsenal’s unusually stately 2-0 defeat of Manchester City at the Etihad on Sunday afternoon was that this was a “landmark” result for Arsène Wenger’s team. But a landmark of what exactly? Certainly it was Arsenal’s best Premier League away result since their 5-3 victory at Stamford Bridge in October 2011 while, if we are talking eras and a progressive changing of the guard, this was surely Arsenal’s best domestic result since the easing of the age of austerity, or in other words since Mesut Özil (remember him?) became the club’s record signing 18 months ago: a high point, so far, in the new Age of Özil.

With this in mind perhaps the person best placed to judge is Özil himself, who was privileged to watch the entire 90 minutes from Arsenal’s bench, witness to some excellent performances in his own part of the pitch from Santi Cazorla, Alexis Sánchez, Aaron Ramsey, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Tomas Rosicky, while leaving him free to nod sagely at Wenger’s astute use of all three substitutes, none of whom, as it turned out, was called Mesut Özil.

There was good reason for that. Özil has played 17 minutes since returning from injury. Wenger is reintegrating him gently, with some talk that he may start against Brighton at the weekend. Plus, of course, the City game was a high-tension affair, with defensive sinews strained at times as the champions produced a surge of trademark high-compression attack. It hardly stood out as an Özil-flavoured occasion and perhaps is the real point when it comes to where the trajectory of the current team leaves Arsenal’s record signing.

We can probably say this now. Özil’s £42.5m transfer may make him the Premier League’s second most expensive current player, his signing the most ever paid anywhere by a club that is not Real Madrid, Barcelona or owned outright by a billionaire of some sort. But right now it is hard to see how Özil would actually fit into Arsenal’s best XI.

Or even – whisper it – what kind of future one of the world’s most elegantly frictionless creative players might have in a team who appear to have turned their faces elsewhere, recalibrated in their better moments around the high-pressure rhythms of Sánchez.

This is in the main a tactical issue. Wenger has moved on from his borrowed-trousers experiment with 4-2-3-1 and now favours an occasionally rigid 4-1-4-1 formation. It was in this shape that Francis Coquelin showed the benefits of a mobile and selflessly intelligent “double bolt” midfielder in front of the defence. Meanwhile ahead of him Cazorla’s two-footed craft in central midfield provided both incision and a place to rest the ball as Arsenal regrouped.

In this formation Özil is neither a serious prospect as a central midfielder nor the best option as a wide player. This is not to denigrate his talent, or indeed his status as a world star. He remains a high-end No10 and a player whose basic gifts – technical, physical, cerebral – are revered across Europe. But Özil is also a very specific kind of creative player, a needy, cosseted little genius whose best moments come as a high spec component part of something engineered in his shape.

Make the run and Özil will find you. Give him a packed defence and a bedrock of possession and he will pick the lock. But he rarely drives his team on like Sánchez, or makes the game up off the cuff like Cazorla, left. Often last season Özil could be seen haring off down the left wing showing speed, balance, dribbling skills, but no obvious idea of what to do next in a team insufficiently bent to servicing his fine-point talents.

There is also the simple fact Özil has not played that well at Arsenal. The most productive attacking midfielders at the club in his injury interrupted 18 months have been Ramsey, Cazorla and Sánchez. Özil has been unlucky: Theo Walcott, who might have brought the best out of those sublime passing gifts, has been on the pitch with him eight times and only once since January last year. But the fact is Özil has often simply cast no shadow, a ghost between the lines. Since an opening burst of three goals and four assists in his first seven games he has five goals and 11 assists in 42 matches and has affected the final scoreline once this season in six World Cup-weary Premier League appearances.

Among Premier League No10s this leaves Özil trailing behind Oscar, who has had his own lean spell at Chelsea but has still offered plenty of bite and hustle while producing more. Christian Eriksen regularly wins matches for Tottenham. Even the tyro No10 Raheem Sterling has had a far more tangible influence in the Premier League in the last year and a half. Wayne Rooney has more assists and four times as many goals in the same amount of games.

Wenger is right to be patient with a gossamer talent. But for how long? What Özil has done well is manage Arsenal’s transitions from defence to attack but Sánchez has this sewn up now. Similarly no one at Arsenal can pass quite like Özil when the waters are calm and the wind at his back. But Cazorla has been a revelation in the centre of late, a ferret with a touch of artistry, while Rosicky, Wilshere, Walcott, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Ramsey and even Serge Gnabry, Danny Welbeck and Joel Campbell represent an overload of attacking bustle for the other two spots in that four-man attacking midfield.

All of which seems to leave Özil off to one side a little. Here is a player who seems best suited to a team either so good he can direct it from his personal crow’s nest or so in awe of his talent it can be built around him. To date his real value at Arsenal outside a handful of fine performances has simply been as a symbol of renewed ambition, a trophy signing, possibly even a lure in bringing Sánchez from Barcelona when plenty of others would have taken him.

Certainly the team who beat City, the Arsenal of Sánchez, Cazorla and (by accident as much as design) Coquelin, looked to be playing to a different pattern, a team without creative passengers. How adeptly Wenger can integrate his club’s most ambitious purchase in the next few weeks could decide whether this turns out to be a fine moment in isolation or a step towards something more.