Wenger demands more despite Arsenal romp

Arsenal's Dutch striker, Robin van Persie, celebrates after scoring its fourth goal during the English Premier League match against Wigan Athletic at The DW Stadium in Wigan, north-west England, on Saturday. Arsenal won 4-0. [Photo/Agencies]

Gunners' surge continues with 4-0 win over Wigan in EPL

WIGAN, England - Arsene Wenger insists there is still room for improvement after his Arsenal side extended its recent revival with an emphatic 4-0 victory over Wigan.

The victory was Arsenal's sixth win in seven league games, and its third consecutive triumph away from the Emirates Stadium, moving the resurgent Gunners up to fifth in the Premier League.

Having experienced a difficult start to the season, when Wenger came in for heavy criticism and questions were raised about his prospects of staying in the job, Arsenal is now back among the challengers trailing leader Manchester City.

An added bonus was that the goals were shared behind Mikel Arteta, Thomas Vermaelen and Gervinho, with Robin van Persie continuing his remarkable scoring streak with the fourth, taking his personal tally to 13 in his past 10 games.

But Wenger said: "There is a difference between the team at the start of the season and now and and we can still improve.

"It was a good team performance defensively and offensively. The confidence was there and you could feel that in the way we played here. The team are growing and getting better and better.

"We had some outstanding combinations and spread the goals around with Gervinho and van Persie scoring again. We know they can score if the team plays well."

Arsenal's emphatic winning margin boosted its goal difference in an increasingly crowded race for a place in the top four.

Wenger said: "We like to score but with Tottenham, Chelsea and Manchester City all winning by two or three, it is going to be hard to match their goal difference."

The flak directed at the Frenchman during the opening weeks has been silenced, but Wenger is adamant he accepts negative reaction as an occupational hazard.

"You can take the good with the bad. I have always just tried to do my best for the club," he said. "When people are happy, I'm happy, but it's part of the job."

Arsenal had surrendered a winning position on its previous two visits to Wigan, most memorably when the Latics overturned a two-goal deficit to win 3-2 two years ago.

Wenger admitted he had been reminded of that game when Arteta and Vermaelen scored within 60 seconds midway through the first half but didn't fear a repeat upset.

"I did have what happened in the past in my memory when it was 2-0 and they started strongly in the second half," he said. "But we had too much for Wigan and looked solid, I felt. We didn't lose any battles so we were not under lots of pressure."

Wigan dropped to the foot of the table and faces Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United in its next three games.

And manager Roberto Martinez admits his side must show much more resolve if it is to get anything from those fixtures.

"We cannot keep conceding goals like this," he said. "We conceded early goals against Sunderland and Blackburn and got back into the games, but when you are playing top-class opposition, you need to be a harder to beat in terms of conceding goals.

"Give credit to Arsenal, we gave them the chance to take the lead and they took control from then. We have some big games against some of the top teams in the competition but that's the league you want to be in.

"You're excited to play these glamorous side but we need to learn how to react if we concede goals in this manner because there are ways to lose."

Agence France-Presse