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Arsene Wenger says his Arsenal side are in “better mental shape” for a repeat of their last-16 Champions League tie against Bayern Munich.<\/p>\n
The Gunners were beaten on away goals by the German club at the same stage of the competition last year, losing 3-1 at home before a 2-0 away win.<\/p>\n
They meet again on Wednesday, with the first leg of this season’s tie again taking place at the Emirates.<\/p>\n
“We are in a much better mental shape than one year ago,” said Wenger.<\/p>\n
“We had lost in FA Cup to Blackburn\u00a0last season and that was a big disappointment for us. This time beat Liverpool\u00a0and are really determined to win this game.”<\/p>\n
Wenger’s side were 2-0 down within the first 20 minutes of the home game a year ago and the manager knows his side cannot afford a similar occurrence.<\/p>\n
“We went out on away goals last year. That shows you it is important not to concede at home,” said the Frenchman.Bayern went on to win the Champions League\u00a0last season, completing a treble after their successes in the German league and Cup under former manager Jupp Heynckes.<\/p>\n
Pep Guardiola \u00a0took over as their manager\u00a0in the summer and the club currently lead the Bundesliga by 16 points, having managed 19 wins and two draws.<\/p>\n
They have lost only once in 34 games going into Wednesday’s first leg.<\/p>\n
However, Arsenal have the best home defensive record in the Premier League, having conceded just six goals in 26 top-flight matches, and lie a point behind leaders Chelsea.<\/p>\n
Wenger, who has replaced suspended midfielder Mikel Arteta with Tomas Rosicky in his squad for the match.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, midfielder Jack Wilshere has echoes Wenger’s voice saying the Gunners will be careful not to ruin their chances of progressing in this year’s Champions League by chasing a first win against European Champions Bayern Munich when the two sides meet at the Emirates on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
On the eve of the first leg in north London Wilshere explained Arsenal’s determination to go to Germany with a fighting chance of eliminating the European champions.<\/p>\n
“There was a lot of tension in the stadium and it was a big game. Once we calmed down a bit, we took the game to them a little bit.<\/p>\n
“This year we’ll be intelligent going into the game. First of all we’ll work on our defensive duty and then we’ll play.<\/p>\n
“We’ve spoken about the importance of staying in the game. If it’s 0-0 at home we’ve still got a big chance to qualify. The away goal is massive in this competition.” Wilshere said.<\/p>\n
Arsene Wenger says his Arsenal side are in “better mental shape” for a repeat of their last-16 Champions League tie against Bayern Munich. The Gunners were beaten on away goals by the German club at the same stage of the competition last year, losing 3-1 at home before a 2-0 away win. They meet again […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1981,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60,80],"tags":[37],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1980"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1980"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1983,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1980\/revisions\/1983"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}