And Wenger has piled the pressure on their rivals in the build up to next week’s Emirates showdown and says the title is Leicester’s to lose.
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Since the two teams last met at the end of December, title challengers Arsenal have accumulated six points in their last five games while relegation threatened Bournemouth have picked up eight points in their last five.
The Frenchman believes Claudio Ranieri’s side have won the hearts and imagination of a football-loving public with their swashbuckling style of play that has left the Premier League’s biggest clubs in their wake.
Mesut Ozil and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain scored within one minute of each other to propel Arsenal past Bournemouth. It is a very big weekend for the Premiership because of the big games next week so let’s prepare and win it.
“We should take a lot of encouragement from that, even if sometimes in the recent games, we didn’t get the result we wanted”. We’re working towards goals, but it’s very unsafe to set 40 points as it could be more this year.
Both sides exchanged decent chances early in the second half, with Adam Smith forcing his way past Laurent Koscielny before firing a shot against the side netting for the host.
Arsene Wenger accepts that Leicester have captured the hearts of the nation in their quest for the Premier League title – but his focus is on victory at the Vitality Stadium.
“Bournemouth are a good team and they maintained their physicality from the first minute to the last and they can beat anyone”.
Speaking to Arsenal Player ahead of Sunday’s clash with Bournemouth, just days after a 0-0 draw with Southampton saw Arsenal drop to 4th in the table, Rosicky urged calm.
“So that means suddenly they become the favourite in the league. It was a good performance from him today and hopefully he can keep up the form”.
“You reproach me about not buying big names but you support the team who has no big names”, said Wenger.
Ozil put Arsenal in front after 23 minutes with an athletic, right-foot volley after a good header back by Olivier Giroud.
“There was no room for error today, and I think the boys responded really well”.
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“I felt we were a bit nervous in the last two home games, against Chelsea and Southampton – we didn’t come out of the blocks like we would have liked”, he said.
