Wednesday, 24th October, 2012
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has admitted his team cannot afford any further slip-ups in their bid to mount a Premier League title challenge.
The Gunners went down tamely at the weekend, losing 1-0 away at lowly Norwich City in a performance which had Wenger baffled given the progress his players have made in recent weeks.
That loss meant that Arsenal slipped to ten points behind league leaders Chelsea, despite only eight games having been played so far.
Wenger now feels that his side have little room for more defeats as they try to climb the Premier League table.
"For us, it’s not only the number of points, it is that the margin of error we have in front of us is very limited", mused the Frenchman to his club’s official site.
"With a result like [the defeat to Norwich] we have put huge pressure on our shoulders.
relatedNewsStory"It came at a period where we absolutely needed to win that game. The rest we are in a strong position, I am not too worried about the quality of the players coming back. What is very important is that we do not lose more ground."
Wenger also noted that the Norwich game represented the fourth match that his side have fallen behind, something which is in itself a concern.
"After 20 minutes they were 1-0 up and we made it easy for them. It’s now four times that we have been 1-0 down – against Montpellier, Chelsea, West Ham and Norwich.
"You win one or two times, but one time you will lose because the team who is there to defend thinks, ‘Now we are in a strong position, we can really focus on defending’. That’s what they did. We are guilty of conceding the goal in the way we did."
Wenger will though switch his focus away from the Premier League this evening, with Schalke the visitors to the Emirates Stadium in the Champions League (preview here), a competition which has given the Gunners some comfort in recent years with regular runs into the knockout phase.
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