Arsene Wenger admitted Arsenal were fortunate to come away with three points having defeated Aston Villa 2-1 at Villa Park.
Yossi Benayoun headed home from a late Robin van Persie corner to give the Gunners an important victory after Marc Albrighton scored the Premier League’s 20,000th goal to cancel out the Dutchman’s first-half penalty.
Wenger admitted after Arsenal’s 1-0 defeat at the hands of Manchester City that his side were out of the title race, but he praised his side’s ability to bounce back from the disappointment albeit through some good fortune.
When asked whether his side had been fortunate to win the match, Wenger told reporters: “Yes because Villa were dangerous. I must say two things, first of all we had two difficult away games where we have had to give absolutely everything physically and in the first half we controlled the game quite well.
“Second half, Villa came back to 1-1 and it was a little bit of a difficult period but then we stabilised the game again and in the last 10 to 15 minutes you could feel we were on top of the game again.
“You can only congratulate Villa, they played well, gave everything. It was a very intense game and we got a very late three points. We were a bit unlucky on Sunday and today maybe a bit lucky, but overall it was important to re-start with a win tonight and if Villa continue to play like that they will come up the table because they had an outstanding game.
“Our spirit is exceptional and that’s why we came from a bad start to the season to such a strong run and you could see that some legs were a bit jaded from Sunday. There’s an exceptional spirit and attitude in the side and it is very unusual for us tonight as we scored from two set-pieces.”
Van Persie’s penalty was his 34th Premier League goal in a landmark calendar year but he was booked near the end for going down in the penalty area.
Wenger admitted that he had had to resist the temptation to rest the Dutchman and stated that he did not believe his side deserved a penalty for the incident.
“He keeps going, of course you always have that question when he plays with that intensity we had on Sunday against Man City and tonight again, do I rest him or not?” Wenger said.
“But at the moment he feels alright so I just take a gamble.”
On van Persie’s yellow card he added: “My press officer told me it was a penalty! And he’s very objective believe me. From the outside it didn’t look like a penalty but maybe he has been touched, I don’t know.”