Arsene Wenger admits Arsenal need to win more big games at home

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has admitted that his side’s barren run without a trophy has had an impact on the belief around the club and admitted that people were right to question the Gunners.

However, Wenger insisted that this season his side believe that they can win the competition, reminding any doubters that they have won some big games this season. The Frenchman continued to Sky Sports that record signing Mesut Ozil is still adapting to the demands of the Premier League and will improve further with time.

On those questioning the club, Wenger said: “Yes – we haven’t won the league for a long time, so that is why they question us.”

“It is not (about nine seasons) without winning a trophy, it is without winning the Premier League.

“If you win the League Cup, it does not change anything. It is the Premier League that is the most important thing, and we haven’t won it for nine years.

“Of course it does not strengthen your belief, because if you win it every year, you go in there and (say) ‘it is just ours’, so it makes the challenge (now) more interesting.”

“At the moment everybody still questions us, even more after our defeat at (Manchester) City. But I see the game at City the other way round, that we can have even more belief after the game at City.”

Arsenal took on Chelsea at the Emirates yesterday in the first game of a festive schedule that includes tricky trips to both West Ham and Newcastle. Wenger admitted that the run adds pressure to his team, but believes that they can deal with it.

“It adds pressure, but you cannot play in the Premier League without pressure,” he said.

“There are periods where the pressure is a bit bigger and periods where it is smaller. You have to live with that and resist that kind of stress.

“People are only keeping in their mind the big matches that we lose, but we have won some big games.

“What is at stake is if you want to win the Premier League, you want to win the big games at home. It is as simple as that.

On his £42 million summer signing Ozil, Wenger continued:

“I believe that he has a personality. He works quite hard and is adapting to the physical challenges of the Premier League at the moment.

“Ozil looks to me like (Robert) Pires. It took a while for Pires to adapt to the physical side of the game.

“Once he had adapted he was absolutely amazing and Ozil is a similar type of player.”