About 10 days ago, Arsenal were being written off as the fall guys of the top four.
The critics said Arsène Wenger had lost Thierry Henry and Freddie Ljungberg over the summer and brought in untested, if talented, replacements. Having finished fourth in the past two seasons and competed in the Champions League for a decade, their status was under serious threat by emerging, big-spending teams below.
The manager admitted his side were motivated by that assessment. But, despite a heartening start to the campaign, he stresses it will not be enough to sustain them until May.
“They were certainly not pleased by that [criticism],” said the manager. “But as much as we have been written off we are not up there again yet. We have not played many games.
“You always have your pride and you want to give a response to people who don’t believe in you. But the real strength has to come from inside the team with the values we have to be faithful to, the football we want to play and the trust we have to put in each other.
“That must be stronger than just a response to outside adversity because if it stops coming then we have nowhere to go. We need something stronger to rely on. That always has to be our ambitions and the values we want to have inside our squad.”
