CRITICS ARE ON ROAD TO PER-DITION

PER MERTESACKER has urged his Arsenal team-mates to ignore their many critics.

Club captain Mertesacker (above) has told the misfiring Gunners to focus on themselves rather than the snipers after they came under fire again.

Watford striker Troy Deeney accused Arsenal of lacking “cojones” after they blew a 1-0 lead to lose 2-1 at Vicarage Road on Saturday.

But Mertsacker said: “It’s easy to talk and say we are lacking something.

“We have to ignore the talk. We have to think how we can provide better performances, especially away from home where it gets tight and difficult.

“We should concentrate on ourselves first of all.

“There are so many opinions being given about us – we need to focus on ourselves and learn lessons from that. If we start to listen to too many people, it’s not worth it.

“We need to look at ourselves and ask what could have been done better.”

Former Gunners goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny, now at Juventus, raised further questions about life at Arsenal by claiming he didn’t improve at all once he became first-choice goalkeeper.

But Arsenal now have to put all the stick they have been receiving to one side and do their talking on the pitch – starting at Red Star Belgrade in the Europa League tomorrow.

Mertesacker said: “We need to be mentally tougher in front of goal. We create the chances but sometimes we need to switch on quicker.

“We were not good enough against Watford because we missed a chance and the majority of players were still thinking about that chance (for Ozil to make it 2-0).

“Those little things, like switching on, need to be quicker.”

Manager Arsene Wenger is set to take a youthful squad to Serbia, as he did for last month’s 4-2 win at BATE Borisov. Alexis Sanchez, Laurent Koscielny and Aaron Ramsey are expected to be saved for Sunday’s trip to Everton.