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Walcott reckons Shield victory gives Gunners the belief to launch a serious bid for title

THEO WALCOTT is confident Arsenal will put last season’s title heartbreak behind them.

The Gunners produced a fine display of character to record their second Wembley win over Chelsea in Sunday’s Community Shield.

It followed their surprise victory over the Premier League champions in the FA Cup Final three months ago.

Arsene Wenger’s side – strengthened by the recruitment of £44million striker Alexandre Lacazette and powerful left-back Sead Kolasinac – begin their campaign at home to Leicester on Friday night.

Walcott revealed morale is high as the Gunners bid to end 14 years of Premier League hurt.

He said: “We’ll let the people talk on the outside.

“We know what we want to do this season. We know how important it is.

“Everyone’s up for the challenge – you know we do like a good challenge.

“It’s going to be different for us this year, but it’s about the way we react – it’s as simple as that. We can’t really dwell on the past any more, we need to focus on our strengths.”

Wenger will continue with the 3-4-3 line-up, used successfully by Chelsea, that earned Arsenal eight wins from their final 10 games last season.

Walcott added: “We’re starting to learn this new system and obviously had a good run of games last season. We’re still slowly learning it and it’s working for now and we’ll see if it continues to.”

The Gunners backline will be given a tough examination on Friday with Jamie Vardy and new signing Kelechi Iheanacho ready to lead the Leicester attack.

Arsenal managed just two wins from their first five games last season. The year before they won three of their first five and at the start of the 2014/15 season, only two.

But Walcott believes the electric atmosphere of a night game at the Emirates will be perfect for the Gunners to start as they mean to go on.

He added: “Every season we tend to start the league not so well and being a Friday night I think a night game might be better for us.

“It’s a bit different. It’s new for us, the fans will be up for it obviously. The home support will be so key this season.

“You’ve got to be patient sometimes with this formation we’re playing, you play a different style of football.

“That’s what we’re learning still and we’re getting better.

“I think we showed it against Chelsea.

“We managed to stop them playing their football – they tend to play it out to the full-backs. We’d worked on that.

“It’s exciting and that’s what we want to do, we just want to play football.”