Having struck his first Arsenal goal at Hull City in last week’s Premier League 4-1 win at the KCom stadium, Xhaka carried on from where he left off, not only with the goal, but with his commanding midfield presence.
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“You know, [Francis] Coquelin and [Santi] Cazorla have worked well together but [Xhaka] will play games and every week he is stronger and better”.
Wenger handed teenagers Jeff Reine-Adelaide and Ainsley Maitland-Niles their first starts for the club at Forest, and brought on three more academy players as substitutes in the second half.
Despite being rejected by Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy, Wenger brought in the likes of Granit Xhaka, Shkodran Mustafi and Lucas Perez as Arsenal chase their first Premier League title since 2004. It was Xhaka’s second goal in four days for Arsenal and further underlined the reason Wenger paid £35m to sign the Swiss from Borussia Monchengladbach in the summer.
“Honestly, for me the most important is that we win the game, not who scores – it’s not so important”.
Perez then swiftly followed up his maiden strike to ensure that Arsenal progressed to the fourth round in comfortable fashion, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain completing the win in stoppage-time.
Wenger was also full of praise for Oxlade-Chamberlain, saying: “He’s in good form at the moment, physically”.
“Arsenal are a team who play at a top technical level and we need to learn from that”, he said. I might be wrong but I think Giroud has got a knock so, although Sanchez has been playing as that false 9 and they’ve been picking up results, he’s definitely an option [to start the weekend’s game with Chelsea]. “That’s never easy because the demands are very high on the players”.
“We had a hard game but we did stick together and played like a real team who wants to qualify and overall our technical superiority allowed us to make the difference in the second half”.
Lucas Perez will provide Arsenal with a vital extra attacking option, according to former Gunners striker Alan Smith.
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The Dane, who recently joined Forest on a free transfer, will face his old club tonight in the EFL Cup.
