Arsene Wenger thought there were plenty of positives to be taken from our win over Crystal Palace on Sunday.

After the match, the boss spoke about our confidence and, in particular, Olivier Giroud’s goal. The striker has come under some harsh criticism as of late and netting his first goal of the new season was bound to take a weight off his shoulders.

“He needed that [goal],” Wenger said. “We have good strikers. Walcott was not used today and he’s an exceptional striker, Welbeck is coming back, we have Alexis.

“We have a strong striking force. What is important is that we show the team performance we have shown [against Palace].”

Despite our decent performance, it was far from perfect and the boss highlighted our fitness as a key aspect to work on.

He continued, “We had some very good moments in the game and going forward we were magnificent. We are still not capable of maintaining it for the full 90 minutes but that will come. I’m very happy with our response.

“Our game was fluid and we created many chances. We have shown important aspects in our game that will be very important for the rest of the season because they came back to 1-1, but we had the mental strength to respond despite the disappointment last week.”

Wenger added, “In the final part of the game when we had to dig in, we did that as well. That’s quite positive.”

I do think it’s important that, as fans, we remember that the team is a work in progress. At times we played some exquisite football against Palace but at others we did seem to sit back and become a little sloppy.

This isn’t really a worry. As Wenger said, we’re not fully fit yet and sharpness will come with time. I’m sure that time will come sooner rather than later.