Arsene Wenger has never been short of superlatives to describe his Arsenal squad when they are on a good run, and he used a whole boatload of them in the run up to today’s game against Everton. The Gunners have been formidable in their last few games and our game showed even further progression in the 2-0 win against the previous unbeaten German Champions, Bayern Munich, on Tuesday night.
Now Wenger wants all these cliches to be brought to the fore today, and wants to add ‘hunger’ to the fray. “I was pleased [against Bayern] because we showed another aspect of our game – desire, discipline, fighting spirit and togetherness,” Le Prof said on Arsenal.com. “We said on the night that we wanted to be together and during the moments we had less of the ball than usual, we showed that we are together.
“We were on the same boat, all fighting together. The players who came on made an impact as well, which shows that the team spirit was very strong, resolute and it’s important that in three days we have shown two different aspects of our game. Both of them in an efficient way.
“We have built up a run and that brings confidence, but you also want a good compromise between confidence, urgency and hunger. It must give us hunger to do more. That’s what we want to do against Everton.
“We have worked very hard after a dodgy start in the first game [of the season] to put us back in the position where we are now. We have a great opportunity so we want to continue our run.”
I doubt very much that complacency will be our problem today, but there is a small danger of fatigue, with most of our players having travelled the world with their countries before coming back to two high intensity battles against Watford and Bayern Munich. Wenger will need to freshen up the squad, but if we keep our ‘team spirit’ and ‘hunger’, we should continue our climb up the table, and put extra pressure on our two rivals facing each other tomorrow in the Manchester derby…..