Theo confident for City clash

Theo Walcott: Believes Arsenal have come back stronger after a difficult patch

Theo Walcott believes Arsenal can cope with the pressure when title-chasing Manchester City visit the Emirates Stadium on Sunday.

The Gunners' seven-match winning run in the Premier League came to a disappointing end with a 2-1 defeat to relegation battlers QPR on Saturday.

Manager Arsene Wenger admitted his men lost their duels all over the pitch and the team are back under pressure in the battle for third after Tottenham drew level on points by beating Swansea.

But Walcott is in no doubt Arsenal will be ready to show their strength of character once more this weekend, where victory for the Gunners could all but end City's title hopes.

"I think that we can deal with pressure when it is thrown upon our shoulders," Walcott told the club's official website. "The manager always takes it on his back, but as players we can cope with that now because we had that tough period.

Turned it around

"We had a lot of injuries, things weren't going our way and Tottenham were 10 points ahead, but we dealt with that, we continued playing our football and completely turned it around. When people play at their full potential it makes the job so much easier. We need to learn to do this more often."

Walcott added: "We are learning to grind out results now. The Everton game for example, saw us play very well for 20 minutes but after that it was all Everton. But we still won 1-0 and that is what we need to do more often.

"We have real character in the squad, a lot of leaders and captains, and that helps us.

"The fans expect us to win every game, and we expect to go out there, play our best and we feel we can win every game.

"The Emirates is starting to become a fortress, which is what we want it to be. That is with the help of the fans, they develop that.

"Away fans and players don't like to come to the Emirates, especially over the last few months. It helps us players, it is like having an extra man on the field."