The 20-year-old leapt to the head of Wenger's goalkeeping queue at Old Trafford last night when he was handed the starting spot against Manchester United because of concern over Lukasz Fabianski's hip problem. It was a remarkable show of faith in the youngster, who had previously played only three Carling Cup games for the club.
The Pole is determined not to slip quietly back into the shadows. "I am a reserve goalkeeper at the moment so I need to take every chance I get and this was a massive chance for me," he said. "I felt that for my debut I did well enough. Unfortunately it wasn't enough for us to get any points but this is my big chance and I need to take it."
"It was a disappointing result, but we won't get too down. We are still very confident. We believe if we recover on Saturday and put in the right performance against Stoke we could easily get three points and be back in the title race straight away. That is what the manager told us afterwards; he just tried to get us to focus on the match on Saturday. This game is gone. The team performance was quite good, but we just didn't get as much luck as United."
Arsenal have gone six games without a win against United and on 27 December face Chelsea who have defeated them for the past five games in succession. The appearances of Cesc Fábregas, who has been out with a hamstring problem, and Robin van Persie as second-half substitutes offer much hope for optimism, although what is more open to question is whether they are capable of producing the blanket defensive performance that secured United their win last night.
Not that Szczesny views last night's opponents as superior. Far from it. "We are still confident we are the top side in the Premier League," he said. "Manchester United are beatable. Everyone is. The Premier League is very tight this year. They do have a solid back four, I will admit that, but they are beatable."
Andrey Arshavin believes Arsenal must quickly forget about their defeat and focus on getting back to the top of the table with victory over Stoke. "There is no time to be melancholy or sad. We need to forget this defeat and start thinking about the next match," the Russian said. "We need to prepare properly for each opponent. The championship is very interesting this year and nothing has been lost yet."
Arshavin feels the Gunners were "unfortunate" not to come away from Old Trafford with a positive result.
"We didn't deserve defeat. The match was a battle," he said on his official website. "Both teams fought for the result and unfortunately we lost. I think Manchester United had more luck than us during the game, but we were not able to create anything special near their goal. We didn't play for a draw. We simply acted responsibly in defence and looked for our chances to attack."
"If it wasn't for a fortunate bounce at the end of the first half, we would have gone in at 0-0 and the second half would have been easier."
Source: Press Association, The Guardian on 14 Dec 10
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