Lukas Podolski got his Arsenal career off the mark with a wonderful goal against Liverpool, and the German international firmly believes the Gunners can contend for the English Premier League title.
Arsene Wenger had backed his new signings Podolski, Santi Cazorla and Olivier Giroud to come good, after the Gunners drew blanks in the first two games of the Premier League season against Sunderland and Stoke City. That faith was rewarded, when Podolski and Cazorla, both scored, against Liverpool in an impressive 2-0 victory, and the former believes there is much more to come from the new-look Arsenal side.
"The Premier League is very hard to win," the German said. "It is not like Spain, where only Real Madrid and Barcelona fight for La Liga.
"In the Premier League, you have five or six teams who want the title. We are one of those and must fight for it. We have 35 matches more and must play in all of them like we did at Liverpool.
"When you have played teams like Sunderland and Stoke and not picked up three points in either game, you have to expect headlines saying you're no good.
"It is what I have been used to, no matter whether I'm playing for Koln, (Bayern) Munich or Arsenal. If you don't win the matches you have to expect there will be a negative atmosphere. We are a big club and we want to win every game.
"From the first two matches we only picked up one point each game, which was not good enough. But if we play like we did at Liverpool, then we will fight for the title."
Podolski was extremely happy with his performance against Liverpool and wants his side to push on from the good result. "This is the Premier League and you must fight and run," he said. "We do this very well and we pass very well.
"This is my style of football -- I like the style of Arsenal and we have the three points.
"But you must not be happy just with these three points -- we want more."
Podolski said the understanding that he seems to have already developed with the rest of the Arsenal players, and Cazorla in particular, was the result of a lot of hard work in the training ground. "I have been asked to play on the left, but you can see that I am free to leave that position and play inside," the forward said. "I don't just have to play wide, I can go in the middle to link up with Abou (Diaby) or Santi.
"With Santi, in training, I've loved the way it has gone. All the time we work on this, one and two touches.
"You could see that for our goals at Liverpool. He passed to me for the first one, and then I gave the assist to him for the second. But we have only played three matches and must keep on improving."
