Nacho - How we’ve turned our form around

Nacho Monreal says that Arsenal have turned their form around by sticking together and defending as a team.

The Gunners ended their run of four Premier League games without a win by beating Everton 2-0 at Goodison Park in their final match before the international break.

Arsene Wenger’s side now sit third in the table, 11 points behind leaders Leicester City with eight games remaining, but Monreal says they are ready for a strong finish to the season.

“We have some quality players so the basis of our play is to keep the ball, maintain possession for long periods and get into the opposition half by playing the ball around - that’s what we try to do,” he told Arsenal Player.

“That said, you need to be a complete team across the board and when we don’t have the ball we have to put the hard work in, defend as a team and stick together because then when we recover possession, we have players capable of bringing out the magic inside them and making us a really dangerous side.

“In that regard the match [against Everton] was perfect. The first half was fantastic in every sense - we performed very well both with and without the ball. We barely gave them any chances, as soon as we lost the ball we were able to win it back straight away because our positioning was good and we were pressing really well.

“We study our opposition closely throughout the week to identify where we think we can hurt them. Aside from keeping possession and taking the easy option, you have to try to target the opposition’s weaknesses to work a scoring opportunity and score the goal that makes the difference and secures you the three points.

“We’re aware that we don’t just depend on ourselves - that’s obvious. Right now we’re in third place so I think the only objective we need to set for ourselves is winning the eight matches we have left and then what will be will be. It’s not just down to us. Even if we do win all eight games that doesn’t mean we’ll be champions, but what does depend on us is winning those eight games.

“We’re coming off the back of two really good performances, the most recent of which we won. We know it’s going to be difficult against Watford because we only played them recently and they knocked us out of the FA Cup, but we’re hungry for revenge.

“It’s a completely different competition. They’re not fighting for big things so we need to show that we are. We need to show we’re the home side and that we want to keep fighting for the league title. That’s what we’re going to do.”