Mertesacker: Derby defeat fired Arsenal up

Posted Tuesday, March 19, 2013 by Foxsports.com

Arsenal defender Per Mertesacker has revealed that losing to Tottenham in the north London derby has sparked an improvement in their recent outings.

An abysmal defensive performance saw Arsenal fall to an abject 2-1 defeat against Tottenham two weeks ago, but they have since bounced back with two clean sheets in their wins over Bayern Munich and Swansea.

Mertesacker admitted that the defenders were appalled by their performance against Spurs and worked on improving as a unit together.

"Sometimes as a player you have a different view and you can't believe what we did as a defensive unit. Sometimes you need to learn from games and that was very important for us." He was quoted as saying on the Daily Mail.

"There was a lot of room for improvement after the Tottenham game - we saw a lot of things on television. Sometimes we didn't choose the right direction and we just lacked a bit of defensive work as a unit.

"There were a lot of situations where there was no pressure on the ball and the back four was not prepared for any balls between us.

"To cover each other, that was the most important thing we learned."

Mertesacker's Arsenal career went off to a rough start last season but has improved this season and he is particularly thankful to manager Arsene Wenger for keeping faith with him.

He added: 'The most important thing is that the boss trusts everyone in the squad. He is the one who says that you are in the first-team line up, he always picks up players who maybe lack a bit of confidence. That makes him very special as a coach. He has kept his patience with every player.'