Arsenal can ‘compete with the best teams in the world’ says Oleksandr Zinchenko as the club’s pursuit of domestic and European glory intensifies.
Mikel Arteta’s men kept up the pace with Premier League title rivals Liverpool and Manchester City thanks to Wednesday evening’s comfortable 2-0 victory over Luton. The Gunners are also chasing Champions League success and next week begin a two-legged quarter-final against Bayern Munich.
With the season at a pivotal stage, left-back Zinchenko feels taking four top-flight points from both Jurgen Klopp’s Reds and Pep Guardiola’s reigning champions this term gives his side confidence.
“Yeah, I won’t lie to you, 100 per cent because it shows that we are ready to compete with the best teams in the world,” he said. “It’s not easy to play against City away and also Liverpool away and the other teams as well I don’t want to be disrespectful to the others. It shows that Arsenal are ready to fight for it.
“We know that we are fighting for something big this season.” Martin Odegaard’s 10th strike of the season and an own goal from Daiki Hashioka were enough to dispatch the relegation-threatened Hatters and build on an Easter Sunday stalemate at City.
Arsenal led the title race for much of last season before fading away in the final weeks and Ukraine international Zinchenko believes the Gunners must learn from last season’s disappointment if they are to challenge for both the Premier League and Champions League titles.
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“I can’t tell you this right now because there is still a lot of games to play,” the 27 year old replied when asked if Arsenal have the squad to fight for both titles. “We already have this experience from last season, where we were quite far from the others and then in the end we didn’t do what we wanted.
“This experience we need to take with us and then let’s see what is going to happen. This year all of us we’ve got more experience, we’ve played with each other much, much more and I think we’re improving.”
