Wenger pleased by Gunners patience

Arsene Wenger hailed the attitude of his Arsenal players after they kept going against West Ham to snatch a late 1-0 win at The Emirates. Alex Song's late header denied the struggling Hammers a deserved point after Robert Green, in front of watching England assistant boss Franco Baldini, had pulled off a string of fine saves to keep the Gunners at bay.As well as being denied by Green, Arsenal also hit the crossbar through Samir Nasri's long-range free-kick and an effort from substitute Theo Walcott hit the post.However, with just two minutes left, Song dived to head home Gael Clichy's cross as Arsene Wenger's improving side kept the pressure up on leaders Chelsea."When you win with two minutes to go, it is always a relief," Wenger said."We needed to be patient, intelligent and not to make a mistake at the back against a team who had a strong spirit and were well organised."We did not do anything stupid, kept trying to be intelligent and that got us the goal."I was thinking it was one of those days when the ball went onto the post and came back into the goalkeeper's hands, that is not a good sign."But we kept going and out of this game we have once again shown a great attitude."Arsenal had plenty of momentum going into this afternoon's game after following impressive Champions League performances with victory at Manchester City and marching into the quarter-finals of the Carling Cup.However, Wenger had warned against complacency."We have matured, you see that in the game the way we handle it when it does not work for us, the players remain calmer than before," he said."We have a good chance [for the title], yes, but we want to show consistency first."We go step by step and we still need to step up a gear to completely achieve that."But on the other hand you feel there is more to come out from this team, we have good potential on bench today and some players to come back."If we can keep a good injury record then we have a chance."Wenger added: "It is too early in the season, but I have belief."We need to show from game to game we can handle every single game with a different aspect which the Premier League has - today we played against the team bottom of the league and it was a real battle."We have to show can compete like that in every game."Wenger hopes captain Cesc Fabregas will be fit to travel to Shakhtar Donetsk for next week's Champions League game."Cesc played a bit within himself. He had a bit of tension in his hamstring. Let's hope he has no setback," Wenger said."At half-time, I had a hesitation to take him off."Then I left him on, I thought 'just for 10 or 15 minutes', but in the end he got better and better."The final result was somewhat harsh on West Ham, who had fought a brave rearguard action and also looked dangerous on counter-attacks as well as at set-pieces.However, Hammers boss Avram Grant maintains all is not lost with his side still just three points from safety."When you come to just two minutes from the end, and it was 0-0, Arsenal almost did not create many chances, because we defended well and played well, so we are very disappointed," the Israeli said."We have played a game against a very good team who just beat us in the last minutes, so we can take a lot of positive things and also from many things which have happened in the past week."I don't want to talk about history, whether things are possible or not possible."We are not in a situation where we cannot do it - we can do it."We need to win games, we have deserved to win games and will try to do it in the next game."We are not yet in November, so we have time to do it. There are six or seven months until the end of the season."Even if we were in this situation in April, I would not think it was the end of the world."Grant added: "We are not in a good situation in the league, but we are in a good situation with our performances so we need to take more points like we deserve."I really believe we can do it because the team have a good spirit and it was an heroic performance today."We know the difference to us winning games is not so big, so let's continue to fight."The players are not giving up, they are fighting, it is a good basis for the future."

Source: Team_Talk