The Gunners suffered a 2-1 defeat by Swansea City at the Emirates Stadium on Wednesday night as goals from Wayne Routledge and Ashley Williams cancelled out Joel Campbell’s opener.
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He said: “It looks a bit like that, yes”.
Looking ahead to this weekend’s showdown, Merson – who played for Arsenal between 1985 and 1997 – thinks that with so much riding on the result, it will be a cagey affair in the capital.
“The players are very disappointed and feel bad but the way we fought back tonight in the second half was fantastic, except we could not score”. Analyse it well and bounce back.
“I am worrying about our results”, he said.
“Every point or three points we get now on is massive”.
Mousa Dembele is expected to be in contention for Spurs after a groin problem, with Mauricio Pochettino insisting his squad are not cracking under the pressure despite losing at Upton Park. “It was the big game and you always got that feeling when you drove into the ground and felt the atmosphere, for both teams home and away”. “West Ham played better than us”, he admitted. But it’s not about complaining.
Arsenal probable line-up: (4-2-3-1) Ospina; Bellerin, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Monreal; Coquelin, Flamini; Walcott, Ozil, Sanchez; Giroud.
The second half was set up to be open and more attacking, as shown by Swansea’s sub of Gylfi Sigurdsson for Ki Sung-Yueng, and it did not disappoint, for the neutral, at least.
The Swans’ boss missed the Arsenal trip, leaving assistant Alan Curtis to step in – and pull off a match-winning tactical tweak.
74′ – GOAL! Arsenal 1-2 Swansea City.
If you can’t watch the game live, highlights will be made available for FREE on BTSport.com and the BT Sport app from 8am on Sunday.
The visitor then broke quickly and Jack Cork produced an excellent throughball, allowing Routledge – one of the six brought into the team – to take one touch and confidently slot past Petr Cech.
“The players are very down but we have to respond to that”, Wenger told reporters after Arsenal’s third defeat in eight days. The Chilean said that Arsenal needed to change their outlook if they wanted to win the Premier League. This was supposed to be the season that Arsenal went all the way.
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– Arsenal have scored in 41 of their last 42 meetings with Tottenham in all competitions. Is this the most important north London derby for a quarter of a century? The last two league games were the flawless time for Arsenal to make a statement of intent.
