Arsenal had to fight hard to get all three points at Newcastle yesterday, and with many of our close rivals also winning, Arsene Wenger is sure that it is going to be a hard slog to hang on to a place in the Top Four, although he believes Chelsea are too far in front at the moment to be caught before the end of the season.
Wenger said in the post-match conference: “Chelsea have a good security and at the moment I feel they have enough to be quite serene. We have Manchester City in front of us but if you look behind us it is tight as well, so the important thing is to win our games. Chelsea have too much security.”
Since the Gunners New Years Day defeat by Southampton we have won 9 out of our 10 League games, but Wenger is well aware that the race for the Champions League is far from over. “At the moment we are not concluding anything. We are in the fight. You have seen the game today – in every game we need to turn up and fight until the last minute to get the points and that’s what we have to do. We just have to go for the next game and win it.”
Le Prof was then asked if he thought Arsenal could carry on winning right ’til the end of the season, but he refused to be over-confident. “I don’t change my mind on what I just said to you. Nobody can predict that. What we try to do is to win the next game and then after that, the other one. Now we have an international break where everybody goes on international duty. Let’s hope everybody comes back fit because you could see that a few players were tired today.”
In conclusion, the Boss was asked if the players thought that they could actually overtake Chelsea. He replied: “The players want to do as well as they can. We know we have a fight first to be in the top four. We go step by step, game by game.”
I guess they are all typical Wenger responses, but the fact is that Arsenal are going into the international break in a good position, no matter the result of today’s game between Liverpool and Man United, and as long as our flow is not interrupted we can look forward to an excellent finale to our season.
Listen to Arsene Wenger discussing Arsenal’s current form…..