Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has told his team not to fear failure as they compete against Everton for that all important fourth Champions League place.
The Gunners had to rely on a penalty shootout against Wigan Athletic on Saturday to book themselves a place in the FA Cup final while Everton quietly went about their business in Sunderland to move into 4th place two points above Arsenal.
Ahead of tonight’s visit from West Ham, Wenger has told his player to put failure to the back of their minds and to concentrate on winning their next five games.
“We know that one of the main targets – the main target – is the Premier League, and therefore we want to finish strong. We have a battle with Everton and it’s now down to consistency in the final games.
“Five victories is the target. Do you need it? Nobody knows, but the target is of course to win every game he told Sky Sports.
“We just want to not imagine the consequences of not doing it, what you want is just to focus on doing it.”
Arsenal’s league form has slipped with the Gunners managing just one win in the last six games and before going into tonight’s clash with the Hammers need to have Lukas Podolski, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Nacho Monreal all assessed to see if they are fit to play while several key players remain out injured.
Wenger said: “We are slowly getting our players back, so the squad is not so depleted any more.
“I believe that Everton have difficult games and we have difficult games, but we want to focus now on what we know we can do.
“We have a more complete squad and we want to win our games, no matter what Everton does. We want to finish in a strong way.
“We can finish the season well – we can finish in the top four, we can win the FA Cup – so it’s down to how united we will be until the end of the season, and focused together.”
