Unai Emery has played down Arsenal’s brilliant run of form ahead of their London derby with Fulham on Sunday.
Arsenal have won eight games in a row for the first time since April 2015 and the Spaniard has successfully subdued his early critics since opening defeats to Manchester City and Chelsea. His side currently sit in fifth place in the league, just four points behind City and Liverpool.
“Usually I don’t look behind, every day I’m looking at the next matches – what’s in front,” he said.
“For me, whether we win or lose, every match is giving me a lot of information about how to improve. Every coach wants to win, but it’s not easy to do that.
“My only focus is on Sunday against Fulham, to get three points to continue going up in the table.”
It’s been a swift turnaround for the Gunners after travelling 5,000 miles to Azerbaijan to face FC Qarabag in the Europa League on Thursday.
Emery opted to take a number of senior players to Baku with both Lucas Torreira and Mesut Ozil appearing in the second half after Arsenal seemed to have lost a foothold on the game.
Emery did acknowledge that the trip may have taken something out his players but the Spaniard is familiar juggling duel responsibilities after winning the Europa League three times with Sevilla.
“The first six teams are playing each season a lot of matches in the Premier League, the cups and Europe.
“Every team want to do the best performance in the Premier League because it’s the first competition for us and also in the cups and Europe.
“The top players want to play a lot of matches. I have experience too because I’m playing in Europe for the 12th consecutive season, six in the Champions League and six in the Europa League so my habit is also this.
“We are going to balance each match physically with the players but these player are prepared to play Thursday and Sunday and then we have players to make changes for some matches. But if I decide to play a someone for three matches in a week, they are available to do that.”
