Szczesny: Spurs cannot keep this up
Published 23:00 19/12/11 By Martin Lipton
Wojciech Szczesny has staked his personal reputation by guaranteeing Arsenal will win the battle for North London pride.
Arsenal's unfortunate fifth defeat of the campaign at Manchester City left them in fifth place in the Premier League, five points adrift of Spurs who have a game in hand.
But despite the end of an eight-match unbeaten league run since their loss at White Hart Lane in October, coupled with Tottenham's 11th win in 13 games, the Polish keeper promised the Gunners fans they will be crowing loudest in May.
Szczesny said: "Not getting above Tottenham isn't even something we can think about. It's not in our vocabulary.
"We don't want to finish below Tottenham, no matter what. That's the mentality here and that's also just my personal ambition to do that."
Asked if that was because of his understanding of the rivalry and pride of the Emirates fans, who have not seen their side finish below Tottenham in the Arsene Wenger era, Szczesny added: "I'm one of the fans.
"So it means a lot to me to finish above Tottenham. And we will do so.
"I've seen them winning but I know they will start losing soon.
"No, listen, they've been in good condition. You have to give that to them.
"But I'm confident we are a better side and will finish above them. Time will tell is they will drop points in the second half of the season under the pressure.
"They look good at the moment but hopefully...no, not hopefully, they WILL drop points in the second half of the season."
Szczesny's brave prediction is a hostage to fortune but the keeper still believes Arsenal - 12 points adrift of City - can crowbar their way back into the title race over the coming months - a contest in which Tottenham were noticeable by their absence from his list of contenders.
"At the moment it is a big gap and it does look too big to close, yes," said Szczesny. "But we think we can make it a lot smaller.
"We need to do that before we can realistically start talking again about challenging for the title but we feel we can still do that.
"Of course City aren't unbeatable. They lost against Chelsea and Chelsea are the type of team who are capable of getting their confidence back. We know we can get ourselves up the league.
"Yes, City are top but Manchester United are catching them. Everyone can win this still.
"We're confident going into the Christmas period that we can get results. I don't think there is a big gap between us and City in terms of quality.
"The only difference was that they scored the goal and we didn't. I think we showed that we are just as good as the richest team in the world, possibly the best one in the league at the moment, so that gives us confidence we can beat everyone else."
Szczesny's words and body language show how far Arsenal have come since slinking home from their last visit to Manchester on the back of their 8-2 humiliation at Old Trafford.
Suspensions mean Alex Song and Mikel Arteta miss Wednesday's trip to Aston Villa, while Johan Djourou's groin problem means Wenger has lost a staggering five full-backs to injury, the Swiss joining Bacary Sagna, Kieran Gibbs, Carl Jenkinson and Andre Santos on the missing list.
Szczesny, though, maintained: "We had gone eight unbeaten before City and I'm confident we can do the same all over again - but hopefully make this run even longer this time.
"Then we will climb up the table and finish as high as we can.
"We've got more about us now. We've had a few good results and the confidence comes back with that. We've definitely showed in our last few games what we can do when we are playing with that confidence.
"Certainly the City game and defeat won't take that belief and confidence away from us.
"We have Villa on Wednesday and then a reasonably easy run over Christmas, so we feel we can get a run of results together.
I think the tough times we went through have made us stronger now. We made some great signings after the poor start to the season and have got the spirit back in the team.
"The spirit and belief in the dressing room is very good at the moment. So we feel stronger and that we can go a long way in all the competitions between now and the end of the season."
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