Mesut Ozil says Arsenal “have to work harder than before” to keep their Premier League title hopes alive.
Arsène Wenger’s go into Saturday’s early kick-off against Everton 11 points behind league leaders Leicester City, though they have a game in hand.
Arsenal took 25 points from their corresponding final nine fixtures last season, but Ozil says the key will be to take one game at a time this time around.
"We have to fight on the pitch and we have to think from game to game"
“Last year we won those last eight [remaining] games but we don’t care about that now,” he told Arsenal Player. “It’s important what happens now.
“We have to concentrate now and give everything on the pitch. We have to fight.
“I know the teams playing us will fight to take the points against us, so the games will be tough. We have to fight on the pitch and we have to think from game to game, not that we can win eight games in a row and take the points.
“Now it’s not possible to win just our games [and that to be enough] so other teams need to lose points as well. The first step is to believe in us.
“We have to work harder than before. We have tough games coming but we have to take the points. If we win the title, we will be very happy because we believe in us.
“If you see the whole season, we’ve played very well. We’ve lost some points because we weren’t concentrated or we didn’t score. Now we have to fight for each game to take the points.”
Copyright 2024 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.