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| Wenger wants his players to switch their attention firmly back on the Premier League |
IF Aston Villa thought they might catch Arsenal still in celebration party mood tomorrow they had better think again.
Sure, Arsene Wenger is sporting the broadest smile in London after the Gunners pulled off their great Champions League escape in Greece last week.
But his message to his players on Sunday will be deadly serious: Don't mess up now!
There will be no old pals act for Villa's French boss Remi Garde on Sunday afternoon. Wenger said:"Wednesday was a great night, but as soon as it was over I told my team to focus only on Aston Villa.
"We must not mess up the good work and that message will be passed on to the players. We beat Sunderland last Saturday and were lucky. It could have gone either way, and we now need more consistency.
"If you want to stay up there you have to take points. Six teams could win the title and I want us to be among them. Our Olympiacos result, hopefully, will do wonders for the team."
Wenger said he remains immensely proud of the fact that Arsenal have qualified for the Champions League knockout stages in everyone of the last 16 years.
"I always believed this group could go far," he said. But, he warned, they can't afford to take their feet off the gas now.
"This is what makes Villa a dangerous game," he warned. "When you look at Wednesday night we were without a lot of players, but we responded. I want the same response against Villa.
"We want the points to push on, but they need the points just as much because of the position they are in. That means the game will be a physical battle."
A picture of Villa's new boss, who Wenger advised to take the Villa job, still hangs on the wall at Arsenal's training ground where he was the Gunners first foreign captain and a member of the 97-98 Double winning side.
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