Arsenal forward Theo Walcott says the Gunners are learning how to win ugly

Arsenal forward Theo Walcott thinks the Gunners are learning how to win ugly. The in-form England international scored a brace in their weekend victory against Swansea City at the Emirates and Walcott suggested Arsenal have developed a Premier League-winning mentality in recent months.

Arsene Wenger's men successfully defended a 3-2 lead against the Swans on Saturday (15 October), despite the sending off of Granit Xhaka with 20 minutes remaining. Walcott, 27, said Arsenal's last-minute winner against Burnley and their doggedness against Swansea underlines their new-found steel.

"The Burnley game, they were very well organised and we found it very difficult. But we all stuck in, showed patience and in time we got the win which was really important," the Arsenal star said, according to ESPN. "Again against Swansea, we had to be diligent, be patient at times ... but we still got the win even if it would have been nice to take the ball home on a personal note. But that's not the case.

"The Burnley match was a game where we had to grind it out. This game, when we went down to 10 men, we tend to lose, to be honest. There's some things that are slowly getting better."

Arsenal are currently joint-top of the Premier League table, alongside Pep Guardiola's Manchester City side. But Walcott is not willing to get carried away by his side's recent good run of form.

"I don't look at the table. I genuinely don't," he said of Arsenal's rise up the Premier League. "I feel all we can do is control ourselves and not really hope that other teams get results on our behalf. We can only control ourselves, if we play well we win games and that's all we can do.

"We've been in this situation [top of the table] before. We started off this season before than we have recently. There's always some sort of blip but hopefully we're not going to have that this year. With the squad we have, if we keep players fit, with players coming back, then who knows ... You can't really call the Premier League this year. It's so unpredictable."