Arsene Wenger Explains Reason Behind “Edgy” Display Against Newcastle United

By The Editor
on 16th December 2017

Arsene Wenger felt recent results played on the players’ minds…

Arsene Wenger believes that recent results had a psychological effect on the players during our nervy 1-0 win against Newcastle United at home on Saturday afternoon.

Mesut Ozil grabbed the winner with a strike worthy of winning any football match, but we lacked further inspiration in the second-half and were hanging on in the final moments.

It’s our first league game at home since that bizarre defeat against Manchester United in which we dominated proceeding yet fell to a 3-1 defeat.

It was clear that the emphasis was on trying to keep it tight at the back, especially given the manner in which we gifted Jose Mourinho’s men two goals in last month’s defeat.

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“We have created the chances to be comfortable and in the last five minutes we became a bit edgy,” Wenger told Sky Sports.

“We didn’t make a mistake at the back, you could see that necessity to win was playing a bit on the mind of our players in the end and the fact as well that we could not take our chances, you try to force it too much and to not play with enough freedom.”

This win comes at a crucial time as we prepare to end the busy festive period which begins with the visit of Jurgen Klopp’s free-scoring Liverpool on Friday.

We owe the German’s side a beating, something we’ve failed to do since he arrived in 2015.

Check out Wenger’s full post-match interview in the video above.