Swansea boss Garry Monk aiming to draw on past success ahead of Arsenal clash
Swansea manager Garry Monk will remind his players of their good recent record against Arsenal before the Gunners' Liberty Stadium visit.
Monk has not lost any of his previous three meetings with Arsene Wenger, Swansea claiming a 2-2 draw at the Emirates Stadium in March 2014 before doing the double over Arsenal last season for only the second time in their history.
Wenger criticised Monk's approach after Swansea's smash-and-grab success in north London in May when Bafetimbi Gomis scored an 85th-minute winner, the Arsenal manager complaining the Welsh club "refused to play completely and just defended."
Monk felt the result vindicated his tactics on the night and he hopes to again shock Arsenal, opponents who have lost only twice in the Barclays Premier League this season.
"They are always very tough games against Arsenal but we've managed to get some decent results against them home and away," Monk said.
"We're always confident against the big sides at home and we've shown time and again if we put our best football on the pitch we can win.
"I think it's good to remind the players that we've beaten them in the past.
"But it's not like when you first came up to the league and you want to beat one of the bigger teams to give you that belief you can do it.
"From the very first game last season, when we beat Manchester United away, it showed the players are established Premier League players.
"They're not naive, they're very experienced at this level, and more than capable of beating any team."
Arsenal have had a difficult week with a 3-0 Capital One Cup defeat to Sheffield Wednesday and seeing Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Theo Walcott join Jack Wilshere, Aaron Ramsey, Tomas Rosicky, Danny Welbeck and Mikael Arteta on the injury list.
But Monk feels Arsenal have more than enough quality in their squad to cover for those high-profile absentees.
"I don't think it matters how many injuries they have," Monk said.
"They have an excellent squad packed full of world-class talent and this is the advantage the bigger teams have.
"They have such powerful squads they can afford a lot of injuries.
"If you flip it around and we had those injuries we'd obviously be thin on the ground.
"Of course they wouldn't want those injuries, but they've got depth in talent to deal with it."
Meanwhile, Wenger has defended Arsenal's medical staff after England duo Walcott and Oxlade-Chamberlain joined the growing injury list.
The full extent of both problems is yet to be determined, but Wenger confirmed neither man would feature until after the international break.
He also defended the club's training methods following criticism from Dutch fitness coach Raymond Verheijen, who also worked with Wales.
"This guy looks like he knows absolutely everything. I am amazed that he knows more than all our physios and all our doctors," said Wenger.
"I trust my medical staff to do well and my coaching staff to do the fitness planning very well.
"I can only invite you one day to see what work is done behind (the scenes). We have some players who are more injury-prone than others, but we are very well organised on that front.
"We have to analyse every single case and every single exercise, but also I think you have to not over-analyse when players are injured.
"When a player is injured, they are injured, this has always happened.
"We have not too many muscular injuries but it is post-international games we get all these injuries and is it linked with that? I don't know. What I'm focused on tomorrow is to continue our run (in the Premier League)."
Source: PAR
