Arsene Wenger admitted recently that his side have become something of a second-half team in recent weeks - but they have still not left it as late as they did against Burnley.
There was 98 minutes on the clock when Alexis cooly slotted home a panenka from the penalty spot to claim a dramatic win for us.
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- Read the report from Emirates Stadium
- 'The fans were so important for the win'
- Wenger on Xhaka and late penalties
Wenger was a relieved man as he side took advantage of their title rivals’ slip ups to move into second spot in the table - and this is how he summed up an amazing match.
on his conclusions from the game…
I feel it was an intense game where we played against a team who made the game very uncomfortable for us, but we had to be patient and not to make defensive mistakes with their direct game, which we did quite well. But once we were 1-0 up we made it even more complicated by going down to 10 men and then of course it was a bit on the edge. But they didn’t create chances, not many, but they looked dangerous always on set-pieces, on long balls and I felt it was a bit frustrating after we conceded a penalty. Coquelin says he didn’t touch him, but I haven’t seen it, but in the end we still got an unlikely win because when you are 10 against 11 with two minutes to go, it’s difficult to win the game. But we are a team who keeps going no matter what happens and that’s a good quality.
on winning with our title rivals dropping points…
It was an important game, but not a decisive game. I think at the moment what is more important is for us to build a run, to have a consistency in our results. That is more important than to look at the table, because I think we have built a strong run after we lost two games. Now we are in a position where we have to build up a run, so every game of course helps to create confidence and belief.
on Alexis’ panenka penalty…
Yeah it was cool - too cool!
on that being the first penalty he’s scored for Arsenal…
He’s missed penalties for us. He was in fact not the first penalty taker for us - it was Giroud. He was second, but as long as you score, you just have to accept it and say ‘well done’.
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