Arsenal forward Theo Walcott has backed Arsenal to come positively out of a spell which includes some very tricky games but has explained that it will be a huge test for the squad.
The north London side begin their UEFA Champions League campaign on Wednesday away at Dinamo Zagreb before returning to England to face Chelsea and Leicester away in the Premier League, and sandwiched in-between that, a mouth-watering Capital One Cup third round tie – a north London derby at White Hart Lane against Tottenham Hotspur, all in the short space of 10 days.
We’ve got a tough four away games now but this is going to test the squad to its full ability, I’m sure.
It’s always great to start the Champions League – it’s when everyone starts to get even fitter and sharper.
The England international went on to hail the Champions League and admitted that Arsenal will face a tough trip to Croatia.
We’re competing in the Premier League, the best league, and in the Champions League against the best players in the world. We’re going to improve and we need to have a good solid start. Away from home, it’s always difficult to play your first game but I think it will do us a favour to be honest.
Everyone just needs to recover well.
The Gunners have improved their Premier League form with back to back wins over Newcastle and Stoke, with Theo netting the first goal against Stoke on Saturday in a 2-0 win at the Emirates in their first home win of the season.
It’s important to see Arsenal in the top four [in the Premier League]. When people say we’re not playing great, we’re starting to get to where we want to be. That’s the sign of a good team, if you’re steady going but you’re getting the results.
It’s all about results at this moment in time, getting the three points. No one is going to remember the start of the season. When we do hit form people will be more and more worried. I’m sure of that.
So this Arsenal team can go far if we really actually believe in it, and a lot of the players do at the moment.
Every game is going to be tough but I believe in this team and I think that’s important. We’ve had seasons where we’ve had very bad injuries but there’s a lot of competition for places now which is healthy for the team.
Theo then went on to speak about the tough start Chelsea have had to the season and claimed that Arsenal cannot suffer any distractions.
We’ve got a lot of competitions which we are in and we want to compete in those, compete in the Premier League, to challenge for the title this time.
You can sense that Chelsea are starting to struggle this season but they’re the champions and I’m sure they’ll bounce back from this. We just need to worry about ourselves and we’re slowly climbing up there.
As he seems to be Arsenal’s main striker now, Theo will be heavily relied on to produce the goods in these upcoming, difficult games.
He finished last season in great form with four goals in the last two games (including the FA Cup Final), and last weekend he opened up his goal scoring account for the season.
