Gunners crisis meeting

LONDON. — Per Mertesacker has revealed the players’ crisis meeting which has saved Arsenal’s season.
Gunners captain Mertesacker admits they had a group heart-to-heart after the defeat at Southampton on New Year’s Day.Mertesacker says the discussions centred on the whole team forgetting their defensive duties — and they have won five straight games since . . . and kept clean sheets in four of them.

The Southampton defeat was one of the north Londoners’ biggest set-backs this season with keeper Wojciech Szczesny making a double blunder, then being fined after being caught smoking in the showers. Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger also admitted that it was “player power” which persuaded him to change tactics and go more defensive in their approach at Manchester City a couple of weeks later — a game the Gunners won to get their top four ambitions back on track. German World Cup winner Mertesacker said: “At Southampton, that was a major setback. That was a bad start to the year.

“After that, we promised ourselves to come out of that comfort zone and be a bit more focused, especially what comes first is defensive work and not just for the back four.

“That is what was maybe the main thing for us to focus, just to promise, and after that we played more convincing, especially defensively.” — The Mirror.