Per Mertesacker says it is now solutions not excuses at Arsenal
There is a new resilience to this team, one forged over the last two FA Cup-winning seasons
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Your support makes all the difference.Per Mertesacker is the voice of this Arsenal team and he made a distinction, after they beat Manchester City 2-1 on Monday, that summed up what is different about them now, and why the title is theirs to lose.
“We aren’t looking for excuses, we need to find solutions,” Mertesacker said. “That is how we approach things at the minute, how we approach the season and every single game.”
Arsenal have probably spent too much time in the last decade looking for excuses: stadium debt, losing their best players, injury crises, bad luck and so forth all conspiring to keep them away from challenging for the Premier League title they last won in 2004. But this year feels different. Arsenal are second in the table but they have their best shot at the league title since 2007-08, if not before. There are excuses on offer – another injury crisis, an underwhelming summer of transfers – but this team does not want to take them. Especially not Mertesacker.
Other Arsenal sides might have been thrown by the spate of injuries that ripped through their autumn. With Tomas Rosicky, Mikel Arteta, Jack Wilshere and Danny Welbeck all long-term absentees, Arsenal then lost Francis Coquelin and Santi Cazorla, their midfield heart, to knee ligament problems, and Alexis Sanchez to a hamstring strain.
Given how Arsenal collapsed at the mid-points of the 2007-08, 2010-11 and 2013-14 seasons, they might well have done the same this time. But there is a new resilience to this team, one forged over the last two FA Cup-winning seasons, and which has carried them through the last month. Arsenal have won four consecutive games since losing Cazorla and Sanchez, owing to important contributions from players who might not always be first choice: Joel Campbell, Aaron Ramsey, Mathieu Flamini and Olivier Giroud.
Arsenal beat City with a gritty performance in which they soaked up pressure, took their chances and defended ferociously at the end. That is how they beat Bayern Munich two months ago and won at the Etihad Stadium last January, a result that set the tone for the whole year. The Arsenal teams of the early Emirates era, for all their promise and talent, could not play like that.
Arsène Wenger has been accused before of being a rigid manager who takes the same approach into every game but Mertesacker tells it differently. “We are capable of doing different things sometimes, and that is what makes it harder for the opponent,” he explained. “Last season we played at City and we showed a different kind of game-plan. We go game by game, and concentrate on having a game-plan and trying to implement it. That has been our strength so far against the big teams, and it makes us stronger as a unit.”
This has never been a team renowned for digging in but their current front four – Theo Walcott, Mesut Özil, Campbell and Giroud – have run themselves into the ground recently to keep the opposition on the back foot. “When I see our players up front working as hard as they did today that makes a difference for us defenders,” Mertesacker said on Monday. “It makes it much more easy to defend our goal.”
Arsenal now look forward to a Boxing Day trip to Southampton, who are in free-fall, before welcoming Bournemouth to the Emirates two days later. Newcastle arrive on 2 January and so it is plausible that, by the time of the FA Cup third round, they will have overtaken leaders Leicester. If Arsenal do that then, with their superior resources and experience, they will hope to see it through.
“We need to stay concentrated,” Mertesacker said. “The Christmas period is the most important. It is up to us to keep that consistency.”
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