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Arsene Wenger says Forest made Arsenal suffer before Gunners breakthrough

The 23-year-old midfielder added to his recent strike against Hull City with another long-distance goal against Nottingham Forest in Arsenal’s EFL Cup tie last night (20 September).

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“But the most important thing for me is that we win the game”.

In stoppage time, Perez was involved again as he slid the ball through for Oxlade-Chamberlain who finished coolly to cap a good nights work for Arsenal.

Bendtner then showed both sides of the character which has typified his career by catching Xhaka with a late foul and receiving a needless yellow card, before nearly scoring his first Forest goal by flashing a fierce right-footed shot narrowly wide.

Bendtner almost came back to haunt his old club in the first half on Tuesday, setting up Pajtim Kasami for an early chance only to see his teammate shoot wide, before firing just off target himself with a curling effort from the edge of the area.

Xhaka has scored in consecutive games for Arsene Wenger’s side and Ljunberg is tipping both to thrive at the Emirates – while also revealing that Perez has shown his quality during training.

“We got there in the end but the game was tough, Nottingham Forest played with full commitment”, Wenger said.

Asked about Bendtner’s display, Reds boss Philippe Montanier said: ” Like the team he started very well at the beginning and then after it was very hard for him because Arsenal had the ball and he did not have a lot of opportunity to play.

“He’s shown he’s a great manager and I think he’s been restricted a bit on the financial side in the past”, Ljungberg told Sky Sports News.

The pick of the Gunners’ goals was Perez’s second.

“Physically we were fine, we ran around, we worked hard, but we had to have better technique and not just give the ball to Arsenal and make it harder for ourselves”.

After the win, the youngster joked he would be happy to play in goal if it meant receiving more minutes in the first-team.

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“Arsenal are a team who play at a top technical level and we need to learn from that”, he said.

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