Arsene Wenger says he is motivated and “ready for a fight” as he prepares to take charge of his 20th Premier League campaign.
The Arsenal manager has been encouraged by his side’s pre-season form after five wins from five games and 15 goals scored.
Having won the FA Cup and finished third last season, Wenger is confident the Gunners can reach new heights if they play to their potential.
"The Premier League is a fight in every single game so we have to prepare ourselves mentally for that"
“I’m ready for a fight and of course motivated to start well,” he said. “One of our targets is to start strong. We had a good preparation and that should give us the needed confidence.
“The Premier League is a fight in every single game so we have to prepare ourselves mentally for that and come out of the blocks straight away against West Ham.
“For me, success is to get the maximum out of the potential of the team. That is the real success. We also want to do better than last season because we always want to move forward. That means that the target is quite high.
“We won the FA Cup last year and we finished third in the Premier League so our target is very high. Our ambition is to win the Premier League but we have to sustain that by performance and fighting spirit in every single game.”
Wenger acknowledges that there will be more expectation on his side than in the past, but he is confident they will rise to the challenge.
“Yes of course [there is], but we enjoy that,” he said. “Before we suffered sometimes from the fact that at the start of the season, nobody considered us at all because we lost our best players.
“That period is over now so we are happy to be under this kind of pressure.”
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