Arsenal face Stoke tonight at the Emirates in a game which the Gunners' goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny has billed as a must win, along with every other game after that if they are to stay in the title race with Manchester United. Arsenal have won the last three Premier League meetings between the two sides, and are unbeaten in their last nine matches, while Stoke have failed to win anyof their away games in 2011, so the omens are good for Arsenal as they continue in a very busy period of football for them.
Szczesny emphasised the importance of the game, in which Arsenal could move to only a point behind the leaders, who also play tonight in the Champions League against Marseille. He said:
"[Stoke] is a massive game for us, we need to win every single game to make sure that we catch Manchester United. It will be a very tough game but we’re confident going into win and we believe we’re going to win.
Exactly, [there's no margin for error], we need to make sure that we win every single game. We’ve been playing quite well recently and we seem to be catching up. We only made up one point so far but we believe we can win all the current games.
There’s not a lot in the Premiership at the moment because we play all the Cup games and we need to make sure that we win every single one to catch up. If we lose a single game we could be out of the title race or out of the Champions League so we have to take it game by game and we’re going to make sure to do our best in every single game.Arsenal are without Diaby through suspension, and Koscielny and van Persie through injury, but should all be back for the Carling Cup Final against Birmingham on Sunday.
We are very disappointed after [the Leyton Orient draw] because not only we drew the game but the circumstances didn’t help because it looked like we were going to win it but they scored with a couple of minutes to go. So we’re disappointed but we’re confident when they come to our place we can win the replay and get through to the next round."
