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Arsène Wenger is “confident but realistic” about the new season and believes his side have the right ingredients for success.

The Gunners have been in fine form in pre-season, winning all four of their games and scoring 14 times in the process.

Wenger is encouraged by what he has seen since the turn of the year, but says his players must work hard to fulfil their potential.

“The expectations are very high and that is understandable because you cannot win the FA Cup and finish third in the league and then say ‘Look, next year we want to do nothing,’” he said.

“People expect a lot from us and it is the first time for a long time we have all had confidence in our environment. Before, we always lost big players and then you would quickly question us. The ingredients are there but I am long enough in the job to know we have to prove that with points.

“So I am confident because we have played well, but I am realistic as well. You know when the competition starts it’s a different game and you have to transform your performance into points.

“We have a tricky start with West Ham and Crystal Palace. But I believe we know what we want to do, we know how we want to play and we had a good end to last season.

“We also have a good stability to our squad. So there are positive ingredients there. We have no injuries at the moment, touch wood, so there is no reason why we should be panicking at the moment.”

Wenger has signed goalkeeper Petr Cech so far this summer and he believes his squad will benefit from its stability.

“The consistency of your squad is vital if you are to be successful,” he said. “I believe success is built on the consistency on one side and the talent as well.

“Have we enough talent? I believe yes and the consistency is there because these players play a few years together now.

“But if you look at all the teams when we had big success in the Premier League, we had consistency. And Man United as well. And Chelsea now, these players play a long time together.”

Copyright 2015 The Arsenal Football Club plc. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source Rob Kelly 31 Jul 2015

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Arsène Wenger admits that Sunday’s Community Shield against Chelsea “will not be a friendly”.

The Gunners go into the match on a run of four successive victories at Wembley, and having scored 14 goals during pre-season.

Wenger hopes his side will maintain their momentum against the champions, but warned against reading too much into the result.

“We have to accept that every game is decided and judged as definite,” he said. “But you know that in real life it is not like that. The tribunal is out there and will draw conclusions from Sunday.

“But no matter, positive or negative [result], we have to continue our way and focus on ourselves.

“It’s a game that is important but it is still preparation. We want to win it and overall it can just give us that little bit more confidence before we go into the season.

“You know, it will not be a friendly as it is like that and it is good like that.”

Copyright 2015 The Arsenal Football Club plc. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source Rob Kelly 31 Jul 2015

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