Wenger: We had to battle
06 Dec 2007 - 08:34:16
Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger admitted that his side had been pushed to their limits to secure a point from a 1-1 draw at Newcastle United.
An early stunner from Emmanuel Adebayor put the Gunners on top, but the home side battled back to secure a point thanks to Steven Taylor's equaliser, before pushing for a winner in the closing stages.
Afterwards, Wenger said that the style of Sam Allardyce's side resembled that of his former club, Bolton Wanderers, who usually proved to be tough opponents for the Gunners.
Wenger said: "It was exactly the same type of organisation and the same type of play, very direct, very committed and in a 4-3-3.
"You could feel before the game there was a crisis. I anticipated a different game because you could see that no matter if there were differences within the club, it looked like they had made a real union to win this game and fight.
"I must say on their side, everyone was on board because everyone in their team did fight like mad for 90 minutes. They made a fight of it and that's why they got a point from it.
"It's not bad. We would have signed for that at the start of the season.
"It was a physically very, very difficult game for us and mentally as well because they did fight for every ball.
"We were not up to our usual game, but we got a point that maybe we would not have got last year. But it was down more to the quality of our defending than to our drive going forward."