Arsene Wenger looking for home form to spark Arsenal's top four challenge

 
Arsene Wenger
30 November 2012

Manager Arsene Wenger has challenged his Arsenal players to make the most of home advantage when Swansea come to Emirates Stadium tomorrow.

The Gunners, who drew 1-1 at Everton on Wednesday night, are down in seventh place, five points behind West Brom and third-placed Chelsea.

Swansea are only a point and a place below them following their midweek win over the in-form Baggies.

Wenger feels if Arsenal can make Emirates Stadium a fortress once again, they can soon close back in on the top four.

"If you look at the Premier League at the moment we have played 14 games, eight away, and now we have played at the two Liverpool clubs and the two Manchester clubs," he said.

"If we play well at home and get the results at home we have a chance to come back, that is our job now.

"We have rebuilt a new team, we have Jack Wilshere back and hopefully we can go from strength to strength.

"We have the spirit, but we have some room for improvement in the final third. Overall, though, when you have the spirit you have the chance. We have to show that now by being consistent."

Defender Laurent Koscielny is expected to be sidelined for up to a month after coming off after less than five minutes with a thigh strain.

German forward Lukas Podolski, meanwhile, missed the Everton game because of a chest infection. Right-back Bacary Sagna is another concern.

"From Wednesday night there are lots of bumps and bruises as you might expect, but one serious doubt is Bacary Sagna with his foot," Wenger said.

"He got a knock at the start of the game when he cleared a ball. It is inflamed and he is a big doubt, but everyone else should recover."

Wenger confirmed Koscielny was set for a spell on the sidelines. He added: "It is a muscular problem, a thigh problem, that is normally three weeks."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in