TonI Kroos is another of those players who is linked with the rebuilding of Manchester United. They wish.

Hell, we all wish. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see Kroos in the English game, spraying his passes, finding his range with perfect curling shots at goal?

The problem is, we’d probably ruin him, too. It has taken us six months to break Mesut Ozil. He came here at the end of August as one of the greatest playmakers in Europe, valued at £42million.

He now sits, mid-February, at a career crisis point. Ozil had a penalty to give Arsenal a seventh-minute lead and took it, dearie me, like an Englishman.

There are flickers, glimpses, but he is as likely to fade these days as spark. He is playing without confidence, and worried glances now replace the verve that greeted his galvanising arrival.

Bayern Munich missed a penalty, too, of course – and the sight of Austrian left back David Alaba as their chosen taker never fails to puzzle – so no club is infallible, but if English football could have taken its pick of any German on the field here it would have been Kroos.

He represented the efficiency and precision we have come to expect from Pep Guardiola’s team. His long passes were masterful, matching the accuracy of his shots, his short work was most inventive.

It is easy to see why David Moyes was at the Emirates and covets him, and easier to see why his employers snort with derision at the very thought of his departure.

Kroos, 24, has turned down Munich’s first contract offer, alerting the elite clubs of Europe but no starting member of this team would be of sane mind to leave now.

Arsenal did well against the European champions, and the scores were level until the red card that changed the game, but there is no better place to be than Bavaria at the moment for a young man with a ball at his feet and the wit to know how to use it.

So it is fair to assume that, after some wrangling, this visit to north London is the nearest Kroos will get to English football.

He came, he saw, he won the game for Bayern Munich and went back home. And that is the long and short of it. Some Arsenal fans will blame the dismissal of goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny for this defeat, but it is another refereeing controversy that wasn’t.

Following on from the correct decision to award a penalty against Manchester City on Tuesday, here was one more faux-controversy in which the official got it spot on.

He had to give a penalty against Arsenal for Szczesny’s foul on Arjen Robben in the 35th minute and had to show the goalkeeper the red card as the last line of defence.

Some argue that when a penalty is given, sending off the man makes for double jeopardy and is unfair. The fact Alaba then missed from the spot, his low shot skirting the outside of the left post, shows the flaw in that objection.

It was harsh on Arsenal, who had been playing well, but not on Szczesny, who still rushes towards too many fires with a helpful bucket of gasoline. He will learn with experience but, until that day, remains vulnerable under the type of pressure Munich apply.

Lukasz Fabianski will play in Munich now, not that it should matter greatly, trailing 2-0.

Alaba having spurned the gift horse, it was left to Kroos to deliver the win. This was no more than he deserved. Kroos was the best player on the field, his fine passing – hitting a high nineties completion rate – compensating for the absence of Franck Ribery. He was a threat from beginning to end.

The game was only two minutes old when Robben moved the ball to Kroos, whose shot from 25 yards forced a quite splendid acrobatic save from Szczesny.

This proved portentous. By the time the prophecy was realised, however, Arsenal had a new man in goal. Fabianski was powerless to prevent the shot that settled the game after 54 minutes, and Kroos was instrumental in its set up as well as its execution.

He played a pass to Philipp Lahm, who returned it, changing the angle and Kroos spotted his opportunity with astounding clarity. His shot curled from 20 yards into the top corner, Fabianski stranded.

It was a quite wonderful strike. Arsenal wilted visibly. Kroos had even set Szczesny up for his fall. It was his perfectly weighted pass that found Robben, bursting through and causing consternation in the goalkeeper’s mind.

Robben may have been moving slightly away from the target when he received but his first touch was good, and he would probably have reached the ball to shoot into an unguarded net with Szczesny off his line.

So, goalscoring opportunity denied, a red card was the only answer. After that, there was no way back. Munich are difficult enough, without playing them a man short and Arsenal could not restrict the scoreline to one.

With two minutes remaining a cross from Lahm was met by Thomas Muller unmarked, his diving header expertly placed. That should be too much to overturn. A pity.

Munich looked genuinely uncomfortable at times when 11 played 11 and even Arsene Wenger’s gamble on playing Yaya Sanogo up front had worth.

It could have been very different, of course, had Arsenal not also missed that first-half penalty; but isn’t an outlay of £42m not intended to avoid game-changing calamities?

German football got deep into the 1990s before one of their club teams lost a penalty shootout in European competition but Ozil needed only half a season in English football to become one of us. His penalty after seven minutes was what one might expect of an adopted Englishman. Tame, hesitant, ineffectual, saved.

Nice piece of skill to set it up, mind you. Ozil turned inside Jerome Boateng, his international team-mate, who foolishly stuck out a foot, inviting the trip. Ozil accepted his unwise invitation and referee Nicola Rizzoli had no option but to point to the spot.

Wenger’s great teams at Arsenal have invariably had a French core but for this generation the coach seems to be embracing the alternate side of his Alsatian roots — and the great benefit of having Germans in the team is that penalties are no longer a problem

Ah well. It would appear we have had a greater influence on Ozil than he has had on us.

His entire demeanour as he approached the ball suggested he would rather be elsewhere. It was like every tournament shootout we have sat through in horror as a nation.

Ozil took a short run, he half-stopped, but more in hesitation than attempted deception, and then he hit it straight, soft and at a height that was perfect for the diving Manuel Neuer.

He got only one hand to it, his right, but that was enough. His hand was stronger than Ozil’s shot, the ball cannoned away to safety.

Mesut to Missit in six lousy months. Welcome to England, old son. Sadly, we’re used to it.

—Daily Mail