Arsenal attacker Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain insisted his side can challenge for the Premier League as he hit back at Roy Keane.
Former Manchester United captain Keane had suggested Arsene Wenger s team were more interested in selfies and six-packs , before Oxlade-Chamberlain fired them to a 1-0 win over Chelsea in the Community Shield on Sunday.
Oxlade-Chamberlain, 21, dismissed the criticism and said Arsenal were ready to push for their first league title since 2003-04.
It s a new era, isn’t it? Some people do it, some don’t, the England international said when asked about Keane s comments.
We’re serious about winning trophies. Personally, and I can speak for the rest of the squad, we’ve been serious every single year I’ve been at the club about winning trophies.
You can see that on the pitch. A lot of people don’t see when we lose and go through tough times how upset and disappointed we are. We’ve always wanted to win trophies and in the last years we’ve won a few. This season we want to go that one better.
Oxlade-Chamberlain feels he has never been part of an Arsenal squad with so much confidence and believes his team proved a point against Chelsea.
The 20-time England international, who has been at the club since 2011, said his side s approach to big games had been a worry.
Ever since I’ve been at Arsenal, we’ve had numerous quality players and the whole squad had been very strong, Oxlade-Chamberlain said.
It just seemed that in the big games we came up short sometimes and you wonder why.
The mentality going into those games was definitely a big thing. Since I’ve been here we’ve steadily got better at that, especially last year.
A game like that against Chelsea is always important because they are a good side and it’s great to come away with some silverware.
