Mid-table teams must not cost us title again, warns Wenger
ARSENE WENGER admits Arsenal have specifically set out to blitz the Premier League’s middle ranks after the Gunners’ soft centre cost them a shot at the title last season.
They are at home to Burnley this afternoon in the sort of game which Wenger admits that, last year, they dropped points.
At the start of the season Wenger stressed to his players the importance of taking maximum points from teams between fifth and 12th in the table. Arsenal took only 20 points from those sides last season. This time they already have 17 and Wenger wants to keep up that ruthless streak against 12th-placed Burnley.
‘I think we are tougher. We are certainly more relentless,’ Wenger says.
‘Last year, we dropped points against teams who finished between fifth and 12th. And for us this season it is very important that we do not drop points against them.
‘We speak about Burnley: it’s a typical game where last year we dropped points. We cannot afford to. That’s why the challenge for us is to turn up with the right focus against Burnley.
‘We are conscious. You analyse what happened last year and we are conscious that is one of the challenges this year.’
In the reverse fixture last October Laurent Koscielny scored in stoppage time for a 1-0 victory. He has emerged as a leader in Per Mertesacker’s absence and with Shkodran Mustafi has played a big part in Arsenal’s transformation.
But Wenger is more inspired by the changes at the other end of the pitch. No team has scored more goals than Arsenal in the last five minutes of games, nor is there a side to have benefitted more from the contributions of substitutes.
‘I have more weapons,’ Wenger explains. ‘Last season at this point we had scored 37 goals in this period, today we have scored 48. That’s a huge difference and that explains the difference. We are the team who has scored more goals than anyone else in the last five minutes and the team who has scored 14 goals with people coming off the bench.’
One of those substitutes today should be Danny Welbeck, returning almost nine months after a serious knee injury.
‘He’s not completely out of it,’ admits Wenger. ‘It was bone inflammation and that takes a huge time to get completely rid of. You have to be very careful not to have a set-back.
‘You have some players, they have big injuries and you observe them in the first three months and you think: “My friend, you will struggle”, because they always have the handbrake on. And some players, they come back and behave like they have never been injured. He is one of them.’