Aaron Ramsey was pleased with the nature of Arsenal’s battling 2-1 win at Selhurst Park on Sunday afternoon.

The Gunners retook the lead in the 55th minute and Palace, while having a lot of the ball, never really looked like troubling Petr Čech in the Arsenal goal.

A week earlier the Gunners had lost the opening game of the season to West Ham United but this was a strong response, winning a tight game in difficult conditions.

“It was very hot and humid,” midfielder Aaron Ramsey, who completed the whole 90 minutes, said after the game. “That definitely showed in the last half an hour or 20 minutes. We were under pressure but we managed to dig in. We needed that after the first-day defeat.”

Manager Arsène Wenger told the media before the game that his team had to be more aggressive in their approach to the game, taking nothing to granted.

Aaron Ramsey of Arsenal runs with the ball during the Emirates Cup match between Arsenal and VfL Wolfsburg at the Emirates Stadium on July 26, 2015 in London, England. (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)
Aaron Ramsey of Arsenal runs with the ball during the Emirates Cup match between Arsenal and VfL Wolfsburg at the Emirates Stadium on July 26, 2015 in London, England. (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

Maybe his comments were playing on the mind of Francis Coquelin, who nearly saw himself sent off for a second bookable offence. He was subbed off instead, and Mikel Arteta even came on for the last 20 minutes. In those 20 minutes the Arsenal captain won an impressive four tackles, adding some calm to the midfield battle.

Ramsey thinks that the Gunners managed to stick to the instructions of their manager, adopting a more aggressive approach than they had managed a week earlier.

“I think so, I think we were much better today defensively as a team,” said the Welshman. “We showed that we defended the set-plays really well. We should have done that on the opening day but today we did and we can take the positives from that and hopefully we can go on a run.”

A good run would see Arsenal – who have picked up the most points of any Premier League club in 2015 – firmly in the title race ahead of a trip to Stamford Bridge in September.

All talk is about the title, and the Arsenal squad are confident that they can deliver it.

“We did really well at the back end of last season. We had a good pre-season and then there is always disappointment in defeat but that might be a blessing in disguise [because] we now know how hard it is. You have to compete every game and we managed to do that today, we put in the effort and we got our rewards.”

There doesn’t seem to be any signs of complacency amongst the players. Maybe that West Ham loss will turn out to have been a good one after all.