The fans may have felt frustrated during Arsenal’s last gasp victory over Southampton last night, but Arsene Wenger has revealed that his whole game plan was prepared with the thought that the Gunners would win the points in the closing stages of the match.
“It was a game where we needed to be patient and intelligent not to make a defensive mistake,” Le Prof said on Arsenal.com. “That is why we need to keep the core in the middle of the team.
“Southampton were well organised and in the last 20 minutes you could feel they started to suffer physically and we took advantage of that. I knew before the game that we could win it in the last 15 minutes and fortunately it happened. Honestly in the second half I don’t think they had many dangerous situations.
“It was difficult to keep our calm but we are professional football players. The crowd was a bit nervous but overall we kept a clean sheet and won the game. We know we can score at any moment.”
As Mertesacker said earlier, the players didn’t feel under pressure going into the closing stages, and perhaps it’s because Wenger had told hem to expect a last-minute victory. If so, that reveals a level of genius that perhaps Wenger doesn’t get enough credit for. Admittedly we were lucky that the Saints were reduced to ten men, but it’s nice that a game-plan cmes together for a change!