By Kayode Ogundare
The Arsenal players convened a meeting behind the back of manager Arsene Wenger where the players did a lot of soul-searching and resolved to arrest the club’s recent slum, Theo Walcott has revealed.
The Gunners were on a five-game winless streak before it was snapped with the emphatic 4-0 win at Hull City in an FA Cup replay on Tuesday, a product of the frank team talk which Walcott – scorer of two goals on the night – disclosed was to address recent performances.
“We are not going to lie, we know as a unit it has been tough and we all had a good chat among us behind closed doors, without even any of the coaches or the manager knowing about anything,” Walcott told reporters.
“We have quite a lot of experienced players in the dressing room. It came from Petr [Cech], Mikel [Arteta], Per [Mertesacker] and Tomas [Rosicky[. We have four good old heads there. I’d like to keep what was said among ourselves but it was very important. We have had a reaction from it.
“The manager probably knows about it anyway, he’s got ears everywhere at the club. The manager respects the players’ privacy and what’s happening personally among us all. It was a meeting to express how everyone was feeling basically and it worked.
“It is important that as a team we have got it in us. We just have to produce it more often.
“You had a sense of the Tottenham game especially, when you go down to 10 men in a big game like that, the belief and the character was there. The never-give-up spirit was there as well. In the derby matches, they could be the matches that turn your season and we may have turned the corner.”
Arsenal are billed to face Watford in the FA Cup quarter-finals this weekend before travelling to Barcelona for the second leg of the Champions League round of 16 in which they trail 2-0.
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