Arsene Wenger: Every Premier League game for Arsenal is now a cup final

The Frenchman saw his team leave the Reebok Stadium with a disappointing draw after squandering numerous chances, but insists a top-four finish is still in reach

1 Feb 2012 23:45:00

By Sam Bisby at The Reebok Stadium

More On :  Arsenal FC, Bolton Wanderers, Arsène Wenger, Bolton Wanderers vs Arsenal FC

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger claims every Premier League game is now a 'cup final' after his side's goalless draw against Bolton.

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Wenger's men drop into seventh following the draw on Wednesday evening, and now sit five points behind Chelsea who are currently in the last of the Champions League places.

Arsenal have yet to win in the Premier League in 2012 and Wenger now fears injuries could also hinder his side's chances of lifting silverware this term.

Asked if he was confident of getting back in the top four, he told reporters: “Of course, it’s a long to go, we have come through a difficult period and we lost the three championship games.

“We have confidence, but we produce it game by game, every game for us in the championship is a cup final now. We go into a period now where we play in the FA Cup, we play in the Champions League so it is important that we do not have more injuries.”

Wenger insists he was content with the desire shown from his players but concedes his side rue their missed chances.

“We feel we have dropped two points because we had our chances to win the game, but we produced a decent game against a difficult opponent," said Wenger.

"We took all the risk, we were a bit unlucky as well because we hit the bar the post, missed some great chances and in the end we took a gamble to play four strikers and nearly got caught in the last five minutes.

“I cannot fault the effort and the commitment and desire to the game, the positive side is that we haven’t lost and we haven’t conceded a goal. Of course we have our regrets for not taking our chances.

“You could see in the last 20 minutes you could see that we had one day less recovery than Bolton and that we had given it a lot against Aston Villa in the second half to come back in the game and win the cup and that we had heavy legs to finish the game.”

On Wednesday it was confirmed that Jack Wilshere suffered a stress fracture in his right foot during his recovery from an injury sustained during pre-season. Wenger refused to speculate on the midfielder's recovery time but was disheartened to have a key player missing before a series of important fixtures.

“You want your best players available when you play in the Champions League or the FA Cup and when you want to come back into the top four you want them available, so of course it’s frustrating,” said Wenger.

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England 1-0 Belgium, Netherlands 4-0 Northern Ireland - follow all the international action LIVE! ahead of Euro 2012
With countries across the continent gearing up for their final warm-up games ahead of Euro 2012, join us for all the action from Saturday's friendlies. Get in touch with us via Twitter with your reaction.

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19:59 BST
Unfortunately for Northern Ireland, they are trailing the Netherlands 4-0 at half-time. Looks like that one's all sewn up then.
19:54 BST
We're still getting plenty of Hazard chat on Twitter. A few are now saying that he's not worth the hype, others saying he was brilliant(!?) and others (which I agree with), saying he created much of his own hype. What do you think? Get involved!
19:46 BST
Joe Hart has also been giving his thoughts after the Belgium game: "It was a really tough game, a good run out. I thought we played well, [but] we were a little bit bitty at times.

"But, we came through. Obviously there were a lot of changes so it's good to get the result.

"Belgium are a very, very strong side who are going to be really good in the future. Vincent [Kompany] told me about them and said that they were coming good and I totally agree with him."
19:38 BST
Here's Roy Hodgson's reaction to the result and some injury chat: "I'm very pleased, it's been a hard week and we've used a lot of players. There was a lot of disruption in the second-half with substitutions – some forced upon us, some we wanted to do. But it's still a very good end to the week playing against a good Belgian team here. Arguably even stronger than the Norwegian team we played last week and I've got to be more than happy that we've come out with another victory."

"[Gary] Cahill I suppose is slightly more of a concern for me because it is a jaw injury. We're desperately hoping the CT scan doesn't show any fracture and it's just going to be a bruising situation, which will be bad enough, but won't stop him taking part in the tournament. As far as John's [Terry] concerned he felt his hamstring a little bit. Again it wasn't a major thing when he came off but we still need to scan it just to be 100 per cent sure."

Suffice to say, if Cahill has broken his jaw, he won't play any part in the tournament.
19:35 BST
And another point from today: Eden Hazard wasn't great. Don't think you can judge him on one performance though. What do you think? Is it just a case of too much hype around the Chelsea-bound Belgian?
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