Arsenal 2-1 Leicester City: Arsene Wenger says Gunners need consistency to win the Premier League

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has claimed that the 2-1 victory over Leicester City on Sunday 14 February "will strengthen" his side's belief that they can win the Premier League title. The French boss, nevertheless, said that the Gunners need to "create consistency" to beat Claudio Ranieri's side, Tottenham and Manchester City in the race.

The Gunners managed to react to Jamie Vardy's first-half goal to secure a crucial victory courtesy of goals from Theo Walcott and Danny Welbeck, who came off the bench in the second half after the Foxes were reduce to 10 men when Danny Simpson was sent off for a second yellow card.

"It will strengthen our belief that we are in the fight. We had a bit of a dodgy spell, Liverpool 3-3, Stoke 0-0, lost to Chelsea, 0-0 at home with Southampton. Now after that we won two games and we are still mathematically in the fight, that will strengthen our belief of course," Wenger said after the game.

"A loss today would have been massive, yes. You get all the negative vibes, the belief goes down, it would have been much more difficult. We would not have given up, but eight points in three games is a lot to come back. We would need to win three , they would need to lose three."

Wenger, nevertheless, has urged his side to "create a consistency " in the coming games to have the chance to win the title, with his side set for a crucial trip to Old Trafford on 28 February.

"I believe that is what we want to achieve. But you have Manchester City, Tottenham and of course Leicester are in it, so at the moment it is very tight. What we want to do is to create a consistency to have a chance to do it. We are conscious we have some big games to come up. It is down to how much can we put that kind of energy into every game."

The French boss, meanwhile, paid tribute to Welbeck after the former Manchester United forward scored the winner in his first appearance since April 2015. Wenger revealed that he decided to include him in the squad for the game on Saturday and the decision pay off.

"In the last two days he was convincing in training. I planned at the start, when I made my press conference on Friday morning, to play him next week. But in the last two training sessions he was very strong and I decided just in the end to include him in the squad," the boss said,

"It was a great decision because Danny Welbeck is a great player, and you never know in our job if somebody else had come on would he have scored or not. But everybody is extremely happy for him, because he has been out for 10 months, that is an eternity for a player. We work very hard, our medical team, our fitness team, to bring him back so strong. Let's not forget he has not played one minute for us, he has just played 45 minutes in the Under-21s."