Interview

'I'd like to personally score the 1,000th goal!'

Arsène Wenger

Henry v Liverpool, Giroud v Crystal Palace, Adams v Everton - all hugely memorable, iconic goals in Premier League history.

We have scored 999 times at home in the top flight, and when Arsene Wenger was asked about it, he had a surprising answer.

 

"I would like to, personally, score the 1,000th one but that would be impossible!" he said. "None particularly stand out, it is always the last win.

 

"But of course [the record] is a symbol of a long period for Arsenal in the Premier League that was quite successful, where we see the consistency we have achieved over the past 20 years is not easy to equal and hopefully in the next 20 years we will do better.

 

"There have been so many good goals but you are always tempted to remember the decisive goals when you were in bad situations. But of course you take the library through Thierry Henry, Bergkamp, Giroud - all the players we have had here you will find some great goals."

We could score our 1,000th goal at home to Watford on Sunday, and there will be a lot of focus on the game after Troy Deeney's comments about us earlier in the season.

 

"We come back to criticism – there’s only one way to respond to it," Wenger said. "But first I’d like to say that on the day, they got a cheap penalty and so we were not just a bit unlucky.

 

"Secondly, there’s always only one way to respond to these kinds of statements and that’s with the quality of our performance. Our motivation has to come from within the group and show how much we want it."