Arsene Wenger has hailed the significance of Arsenal’s narrow 1-0 win against Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea in the FA Community Shield.
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain had scored the only goal of the game after turning Cesar Azpilicueta inside out and firing a rising shot past Thibaut Courtois.
Chelsea had their opportunities – most notably Eden Hazard’s miss from a promising position and Oscar’s free kick – but were unable to get the ball past ex-Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech.
After finally getting one over Mourinho, a pleased Wenger praised his side while noticing the magnitude of this victory: “It’s always important [to win] because if you lose, people say ‘Chelsea have beaten you again.’”, he told Arsenal Player.
“We defended the lead, didn’t want to concede and maybe over-protected our lead a little bit.
“But we had the best chances.”
One of the most talked about statistics of the English game has been Mourinho’s unbeaten streak of 13 against Wenger, one which was finally broken on Sunday, leading to sour grapes and an exchange of daggers from both sides.
But, dodging that angle just as he dodged Mourinho during the post-match handshake, Wenger focused on the implications of breaking that particular psychological barrier.
“To get that hurdle out of the way was important for my team,” he said. “We know that we can beat them and before we go into the Premier League; that is very important.
“It’s important that when you have to win and want to win, you win. We have seen some aspects in our team that I’m very pleased with.”
“It strengthens the belief that we do something right, that we share the same way to see the game. Overall I believe that that comes out of the team – that they are ready to fight for each other. Let’s hope we can keep that in the squad.”
