by Mark Bassey

Arsenal vice-captain Per Mertesacker, has said that the team held a crisis meeting, which has saved their season.

The Gunners were beaten 2-0 by Southampton on New Year Day at St Mary’s and after that they came together and had discussions.

According to the German defender, the issues raised were majorly about the team’s defensive issues and keeping their shape.

Since that time, Arsene Wenger’s men have won five straight games and kept clean sheets in four of them.

“At Southampton, that was a major setback,” Mertesacker said. “That was a bad start to the year.

“After that, we promised ourselves to come out of that comfort zone and be a bit more focussed, especially what comes first is defensive work and not just for the back four.

“That is what was maybe the main thing for us to focus, just to promise, and after that we played more convincing, especially defensively.

“You can see the benefit when everyone realises that, and I thought everyone realised it very quickly after we lost at Southampton. Maybe sometimes you need a wake-up call in certain times to realise what was really important.

“We worked a lot on our defensive shape, not just the back four, to avoid those dangerous free balls against us. We look much better and the best game defensively was against Man City, that was a bit of a change.

“In the last years, we went there and wanted to convince everybody that we can go and play our own way, so that was a bit of a change. Sometimes we have to do something else that was unexpected, and was maybe the winning moment.”

ifreke

Ifreke Inyang is a public commentator and social media critic who has worked with a number of high profile publications across the country.