Football
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Man City win doesn't mark change for Arsenal, Arsene Wenger says

LONDON -- Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has quickly dismissed suggestions that his side's controlled approach in their impressive 2-0 win at Manchester City last weekend is a sign of a changing mentality in his football philosophy.

Wenger won widespread praise for the measured tactical approach his side adopted at the Etihad Stadium, as Arsenal ended a damaging run of negative results away form home against their Premier League top four rivals in encouraging fashion.

Yet the idea that Wenger is about to abandon his long-standing desire to play with an effervescent style of passing football has been hastily banished by the Arsenal boss.

"So I go from being too romantic to too pragmatic," he said with a smile. "We are not going to change our style. Of course we want to be defensively strong, but we want to play.

"We knew that it was important for us to be a bit more cautious against City. We wanted to be a bit more reassured.

"Last year we conceded many goals in big games, so maybe we were a bit more focused on defending well together, but it is not the basics or philosophy of our game, that [attacking style] will always remain."

"They had a team that was organised to defend well with Fernando, Fernandinho and [James] Milner from the start, so for us it was more difficult for us to keep the ball as much as we usually can.

"With Yaya Toure they are certainly more dangerous going forward, but certainly less focused on defending, so the game would have been more open if Toure and [Samir] Nasri had been playing."

Meanwhile, Wenger told Arsenal.com that his side needs to find a defensive consistency if they are to challenge for the major honours in the game regularly.

"The only disappointment of this group -- which has a very good dynamic and unity so that when you watch them play you think something is happening -- is that we have to find our defensive stability to really be firing on full cylinders," he said.

"Therefore we maybe need to have a look in January to get at least one more player in because we have been hit so hard by injuries that we have become too dependent on some players who play every single game. Then the more they play, the more chances they have to be injured."

That player looks set to be Villarreal's Gabriel Paluista, with Wenger closing in on a 20 million euro move for the Brazilian central defender, which will be subject to the 24-year-old receiving a work permit to play in England.

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