Laurent Koscielny says Arsenal had to mentally push themselves as they secured their first win of 2018 beating Crystal Palace 4-1 at the Emirates.
The France international, making his first appearance of the new year, scored the Gunners third goal of the afternoon as they raced to a four-goal advantage inside 22 minutes.
The win temporarily closes the gap on the top four to five points ahead of a ten game hiatus in Premier League action.
Speaking to after the game, Koscielny noted that the three points will help build confidence in the camp.
“It was very important because the last few games we didn’t play well and didn’t get the three points, and we didn’t give as much as we need to, to win games,” he told Arsenal.com.
“Today we were focused on what we want to achieve together, we know we have the quality technically and physically but mentally we needed to push ourselves more. We just had one target and that was to win, and the first half was very good.
“In the second half we were not efficient, we lost a lot of balls and we didn’t play well but we kept the win. Today was important for our confidence and confidence comes with results and wins. So today we are a little bit more confident than last week.
“Without sacrifice on the pitch, the defensive runs and offensive runs give solutions to your team-mates. If you don’t keep this you can’t win in the Premier league so we need to keep this.”
I hope Mkitaryan arrives hungry.
The opposition won’t like it when he eats their Mickeys.
It is handy he’ll most likely have the requisite hatred of Jose already instilled in his soul that’s needed to be a true gooner. We won’t have to give him the customary clockwork orange treatment, keeping his eyes wide open while we show him clips of interviews with Jose, interspersed with human atrocities and slow motion footage of Harry Kane’s underbite with Scouting for Girls “she’s so lovely” playing over the tannoy. Shame, apparently Steve Bould loves that part of the job…
He’s arriving low on confidence but with a large pay check so if he’s hungry he can afford the finest food in London.
SMH, sorry my friend Mahrez isn’t coming. I know you must be extremely disappointed that Arsenal just wont listen to you.
You didn’t get the pun on his name did you…
10 more wins please…..COYG
Enjoyed watching the pantomime villain,Zaha. What a moaning,cheating,diving comedian he is.
So glad he is back.
That Greek defender has improved morale no end.
Better from the team. Bring in the new players and get ready for the rest of the season.
Give Mo a run at holding midfield, just not to forget we still need a defender and a keeper.
Get oba, miki and a defender and and let’s move on
“If you don’t keep this you can’t win in the Premier league so we need to keep this.”
Too late dude, it’s better to write it down on your notes and dont forget to read right before the next season start, just focus on top 4/europa league right now, both also hard to achieve nowadays
it was ONLY c palace, don’t get carried away, its a shame that we cant play like that against the top teams
Looks to me that we were set up in a midfield diamond with two up top and a back 4. Elneny deeper released Granit to do better work higher up but either or both of Jack and Granit drop to close gaps with Elneny. Elneny did OK (as expected) some decent passes forward but still very flimsy tackling, one of which could have easily been another soft penalty against us. Simply put we sold our best tackler because we can’t sell Elneny. That said, hope he improves because he is one of few options now. I don’t think AMN is… Read more »
A 10 game* league hiatus … fuck the interlull. We are just starting to look good. Bring us the league cup, Europa petrol league, second in epl with late surge.
Ok Arsene. Now bring Auba and a strong DM and get the party started!