Arsene Wenger is preparing his Arsenal squad to face Liverpool at home on Monday, and he is aware that we cannot afford to have another slip-up like we did against West Ham in our opening game. If the Gunners have serious title pretensions this season then we have to turn the Emirates into a fortress for the rest of the campaign, starting this week.
“If you want to have a successful season you want to be strong at home,” Wenger said in the pre-match press conference. “Normally we are strong at home. This is an opportunity to show that.
“We missed our first game and we had to look at ourselves, and we responded very well. Now we need to come back to our usual strength that we have at home.
“Your confidence is linked with your last result and at Crystal Palace we responded well. You could see that we were a bit edgy at times but we responded in a very strong way. From that we should have enough confidence to go into the game positively against Liverpool.
“This is a very important game where the result will of course be vital. It’s not a result that will decide [our title chances] but in our heads we know it’s very important.”
We must hope that the West Ham defeat doesn’t play with their heads before the game, and they need to keep the confidence they had in the Palace game. Wenger may say this game will not decide anything but the pressure really will be on if we don’t take all three points, especially with Liverpool coming into the match with a 100% record so far.
I don’t know about the players, but I’m nervous as hell!