Arsenal may be on a fantastic League run of 16 wins in 18 games, but according to Per Mertesacker this sequence will mean nothing when the Gunners line up at Wembley tomorrow, and the pressure of playing at Wembley will just as tough against Reading as it was against Wigan last season.
“It’s good to have a run,” Mertesacker said on FourFourTwo. “Obviously we had some setbacks at the start of January and February, but after that we managed our situation well by just winning and focusing on ourselves.
“Not worrying about who was ahead of us, or if we were going to be a (Premier League) title contender, we just wanted to be consistent.
“But, Saturday against Reading is another competition. That run means nothing.
“We are at a good level of confidence, but there will be pressure situations for us because we are super favourites, and can we handle that during the game?
“We suffered a bit last season on that occasion with that pressure, but it was a great experience, and hopefully we can manage that much better this time.
“Last season we created a lot of chances, but it looked like we couldn’t score and we looked really desperate after we conceded that penalty and it was really hard, so let’s focus on that game and not thinking too much about the Premier League.”
Mertesacker was responsible for giving Wigan the lead in last year’s semi, but then went on to score a late equaliser to enable Arsenal to go on and win the game. The German defender can see similarities in tomorrows match: “Yes, obviously it was a tough one against a Championship side, so you can compare it a little bit, but obviously it’s going to be difficult,” he continued.
“It’s a great warning from last season, that we went to penalties and had a great stopper in Lukasz Fabianski who saved two, so it’s a good warning to all of us.
“You need to be focused 100 per cent. I think Reading and Wigan are quite similar, so it’s going to be a tough one for us.”
Just make sure you don’t give away and silly penalyies Per, and we’ll be fine!
Walcott cant f*ck around with Arsenal anymore. Sign up or fu*k off to Liverpool, benchwarmer.
Calm down
ummm his contract doesn’t run out tomorrow??? he’s still an Arsenal player who’s given no indication of leaving, nor have we given any indication there’s an offer on the table to ‘sign up’ to.
I honestly don’t think he wants more money I think now he wants guaranteed playing time since he sees how good our team is
Somehow i disslike listening to Merti. He speaks to much in my openion, i cant forget that trashin from Chelsea we got, and he was like ” we played to early in the day, and mayb thats why they beat us”.
Every game is important, as no team in th epl and even in the second devision is a real pushover.
i knw it pisses us off cuz he’s a contract RebeL….and many knw him for the “sign that thing” sLogan……..many adored him vs the spuds, many missed him for over 11 months, now he’s back, but not so much in good shape at the moment, but needs time………why all the hate now?
Well said. I can honestly say I became an official Walcott fan that day we beat spuds in the FA. I think the more intelligent fans understand what Walcott brings to the table and know selling him would be crazy. I have no doubt that TW14 wants to stay and that AW wants to keep him. Give him a full preseason and a little less pressure to be the next Henry, the kids gonna be sick. Looking forward to the Walcott vs OX battle for the right flank
There’s always gonna be fans that don’t see what Walcott brings or appreciates what he does since he’s not some dribbler. I remember when the first contract saga was going on, I had to defend and fight tooth and nail for Walcott saying how important he was while 90% of people on here we’re saying he’s not good enough blah blah blah
yeerrrrp.
You’d think the skeptical fans would learn that the majority of players who earn opportunities in the first-team mostly turn out brilliantly..
But ahhh.. For now it’ll be Walcott and Wilshere getting whipped even though they barely effect the team at the moment whatsoever
If teams in lower half of PL or Championship were easy to beat Chelsea, City, would still be in the tournament. Reading and Villa wouldn’t be in it still.
If we don’t play well Reading can punish us
Remember we beat Brighton 3-2. We got sloppy in the second half.
Solution: Put out our best team and play as hard and as well as we can.
Agree whole-heartedly. Under-estimating teams is the reason for a lot of teams failures the past few seasons. Unless you’re United, Spurs, Liverpool or Everton.. then you just got done by the better team 🙂
I am looking forward to the match tomorrow
It will be loads better than that boring match on at the same time.
Seriously, if Reading win AND Chelsea win, I will seriously cry like a baby. Maybe even vomit
Lets hope and pray for Arsenal win and good result in other match.
Bad News: Blind, Rojo, Jones and Carrick all Out of tomorrows other match. Blind and Carrick are biggest losses. Blind is like Coquelin.
Good News: Alexis is shortlisted for PFA Award and Fabregas is not 🙂
Loyalties aside. How on earth can Coutinho be shortlisted. He’s not even in the top 5 creative players in the league. Cazorla, Fabregas, Özil, Mata and Silva are all better than him, by a distance too. He literally just scored two good goals and suddenly he’s world class. If anyone actually watches him play, he shoots from 20+ yards all the time, greedily too, at least 3-4 times a game. Bound to get one or two in eventually… It’s like David Luiz being in the FIFA World 11…
Honestly it’s such a disgrace to see coutinho in there in like 30 games he has 4 goals and 4 assists. But look at all his other numbers like key passes, chances created etc. it doesn’t even hold a candle to the players you just mentioned. I’m actually pissed he got nominated
Actually Id love Coutinho to
come and play for us.
Sell Wilshere to City for 30 mill
and get Coutinho
Hafiz version 2.1
It’s a strategy so that you don’t have to vote for the player with the next best likelihood of winning. Google John Terry’s PFA ballot sheet
I agree no idea at all how PC is on the list. And Sterling on the YPOTY list is almost as baffling. They both been OK in an average Liverpool season – not ripping up trees or anything. However the thing that annoys me the most with this award is doing it with 20-25% of the season left. If Kane or Costa don’t do anything till the end of the season then both nominations look a bit daft – both had good half seasons. What if DdG has 6 crap matches and has 3 or 4 howlers? Conversely if Sanchez knocks in another 6 or 7 goals and stars for us you might say he had a better season.
I’m with you @ Jonestown it actually makes little to no sense cause the final run in of games is where you can see what some players are made of.
… a poor man’s coquelin!!
@fred cowardly
Watch Kane pip it…
o.t does anybody on here honestly think we might try and make a move for klopp this summer are the board that aggressive enough to make the decision also wenger has not come out straight away to denied that klopp is coming to arsenal he just batted the question away in the press conference yesterday this makes me wonder if wenger is going to sit down with the board and have a chat to see what is the best way forward for the club(maybe moving upstairs to the boardroom so he doesn’t have to break his contract) i am sure if certain members of the board saw this as a prime opportunity to move the club forward post wenger we will see what will happen this might be the only chance to get him as we might not be any decent manager around when wenger does retire we would probably end up with martinez instead realistically who do you think we would end up with in 2 yrs time options will be more limited me thinks and we wil have missed the boat better make it count this time coyg
punctuation’s over-rated!!
but to answer your wildly speculative comment.. No. Absolutely no chance. Wenger’s had a relatively successful few seasons and looking a great chance to compete for the league and greater next season. Why change that?
Jeez! How’d he do it?……… I haven’t seen a singLe punctuation mark in ere….. His words just kept running Like a Tap L()L
All i want is win..nothing wrong in what Per has said..but we should do the talking on the pitch..not gon be easy heh? well i predict a 3 nil victory.
COYG!!
we’ve been doing great lately,lets show class
Well folks seems like ages since I posted…was there at the ground for the Liverpool 4-1 win! A day I will never forget. Now sitting in Venice I reckon it will be Arsenal 3-0. My team prediction:
Szc
Hector Gab Kos Nacho
Coq Santi
Rambo Ozil Sanchez
OG12
Bench: Per, TW14, Gibbs, Welbeck, Jack, Diaby, Ospina
Keep the form going you little beauties!
COYG!!!
First the Liverpool game now your kicking it in Venice?! Lucky b*stard lol