Title race is wide open, insists Wenger

Arsene Wenger insisted the title race remains wide open after Arsenal’s scoreless draw with Manchester United moved Wenger’s side to within one point of leaders Chelsea.

The failure to beat United meant Wenger’s side missed out on the chance to go top, but after the heavy weekend defeat at Liverpool, the Frenchman was pleased by his side’s response.

“It was important not to lose tonight,” he said. “We have had two difficult games at Liverpool and now at home to Manchester United but we can now look forward to other games. The title race is absolutely open.”

Wojciech Szczesny’s late save denied Robin van Persie’s header and prevented Manchester United from claiming the victory that would have revived their hopes of reaching the top four.

The Arsenal keeper said: “Robin has not scored a lot at the Emirates and I wanted to make sure he did not score the first one. It was a good save, but I am disappointed because it did not give us all the points.

“We are a bit disappointed but we got a point against a very good side. We got a clean sheet, so that’s a positive, but obviously we are disappointed we did not win the game.

“The title race is going to be tight. You have got a lot of teams close together at the top. But we will see. We are confident. We dropped points in two games but we will put our all into the last 12 or 13 games of the season and if we show our character, I believe we can do it.

“We will be fighting right to the end and that is the least you can expect from players playing for Arsenal Football Club. We showed how we could recover from the game at the weekend — that took a lot of mental strength from us. But now it is time to push on and really give it a go for the last 10 or 12 matches of the season.”

The draw together with Liverpool’s late victory at Fulham leaves United 11 points off fourth place with 12 games to go, though David Moyes refused to concede defeat in the battle to claim a place in next season’s Champions League.

He said: “We have to try and win our next game, just as we tried to win this one. If you had told me we would take four points from Arsenal this season, I would have taken that. It has been other results that have let us down.”

“Both teams had opportunities. I thought overall we looked compact and defended well. We had opportunities, Robin had a great chance.”