Arsenal travel up to Manchester to face a Man City side that beat the Gunners 6-3 on their last visit, but Arsene Wenger doesn’t believe that was a fair result, and thinks that we can get a completely opposite result tomorrow. “It was not at all a reflection of the game,” said Wenger on Arsenal.com. “If you look at the chances on both sides. They scored some of the goals in the last 20 minutes, when we were down to 10 men and had to go forward. We missed chances over there.
“Every game is different though. If you play 10 times against the same team, 10 times it will be different. So let’s just focus on the performance of the day.”
“How do we get it right? By defending well as a team, by getting the balance right in the structure of the team from the start, and by putting the effort in when you lose the ball to help each other,” he said.
“We played well against Man City this season and of course we want to play well again. It is vital for us get a win against a big rival and we have a chance to show that we are ready to do that. I’m confident that we can do it.”
Wenger is aware that Arsenal are struggling defensively this season, but he believes that we have one of our best strike forces ever assembled in his reign. “We have never had so many forwards of that quality together,” he remarked. “We have plenty of options and plenty of pace in the squad as well. It is about how we use that in order to get the right level of confidence in the side.
“To have that right is to get the right balance between going forward, being creative, creating goal chances and also stopping the opponent from scoring.
“The team is not only made of strikers, the team is made of a balance between strikers, midfielders and defenders and that’s what you want to get right until the end of the season.”
I wish I could share Wenger’s confidence, but Le Prof’s record away at Top Four teams has been appalling in recent years. If we CAN pull it off I, for one, will be ecstatic!