Arsenal fans will be ‘silly’ and get nervous if they are challenging for silverware late in the season, putting more pressure on the team, reckons Joe Cole.
The Gunners continued their solid start to the season with a 2-0 win over Olympiacos in the Champions League on Wednesday night at the Emirates.
Gabriel Martinelli was on the scoresheet again, before Bukayo Saka came off the bench to score a late second.
Mikel Arteta’s side showed their strength in depth again, as the Spaniard was able to bring on the likes of Saka, Declan Rice, Eberechi Eze and Jurrien Timber as substitutes.
Second in the Premier League table and with two wins from two Champions League outings, Cole sees Arsenal challenging to win both competitions, given the amount of quality in the squad.
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The difficulty will be dealing with the relentless pressure games at the business end of the season and he has warned Arsenal fans that they could hinder the team when it really counts.
‘I just think looking all round at Arsenal, you look at the full-backs coming in, [Ben] White and [Myles] Lewis-Skelly. The two centre-halves they’ve got on the bench, pushing the two boys there,’ Cole said on TNT Sports.
‘Everything about the club, young players who are hungry, who are important to have to drive the group. They’ve got all the ingredients now, there’s no excuses now.
‘If you could fast forward to April/May and Arsenal are still in the Champions League, which I think they will be, the quarter-finals, semi-finals, and they’re still chasing the league. That’s the time they’ll trip themselves up, if they’ve not developed, because they’ve got to be able to work out how to compete every three days with the pressure.
‘And the fans do this silly thing where they start getting nervous, because it’s been such a long time.
‘They’ve got to really find a way, Arsenal, at the back end of the season, because there’s no doubt they’ll be there with the quality they’ve got.’
Arsenal have a string of matches to come in London, hosting West Ham in the Premier League on Saturday before making the short trip to face Fulham after the international break on October 18.
They return with three home games on the spin against Atletico Madrid, Crystal Palace and Brighton in the Champions League, Premier League and Carabao Cup respectively.
Commenting on the impressive strength in depth and competition for places in his squad, Arteta said after the win on Wednesday: ‘Yeah, with all respect, last season we were looking and we had five academy players there that probably never played professional football in the Champions League, so yeah, it makes a difference.
‘Today we decided to change six players, I think it was, because I want everybody to really be involved and feel part of it, and it was great and we had the feeling as well that physically we were dropping because we played a really intense match in Newcastle a few days ago.
‘The ones that came in, again, they lifted the level and they helped us to win the game, and that’s great.’
On the result against the Greek side, he added: ‘Well, very happy, obviously winning the Champions League is always very complicated, keeping another clean sheet, we make something like 11 in 14 games, which is remarkable from the boys.’