Stoke City midfielder Steven N’Zonzi slams Arsenal's mentality in the Premier League

Stoke City midfielder Steven N’Zonzi believes that Arsenal need to be better prepared for the Premier League’s physical challenges after the Potters dealt Arsene Wenger’s title chances a huge blow with a 1-0 victory at the Britannia Stadium on Saturday, reports Goal.com.

Arsenal, with their neat, expansive passing game have always struggled to negotiate a victory at the expense of Stoke’s physicality and have won just once in seven visits to Staffordshire.

The Gunners were seemingly heading for a point this time around until Laurent Koscielny conceded a late penalty which was converted by Jonathan Walters and N’Zonzi is adamant they will continue with their robust and aggressive style against Arsenal in the future.

“We know that Arsenal play good football but, when you start kicking them a little bit, it gets harder for them.

“They don’t like it, we know that. We don’t care. We’ll keep on doing it, being strong and trying to be as good as we can be on the ball,” he declared, in the wake of a victory that sees Arsenal’s Premier League title hopes start to slip away.

Although Mark Hughes has been introduced to reverse the criticism of Stoke’s ‘negative’ style of play, they remain a tough nut to crack at home and have claimed the scalps of several top team this season while N’Zonzi believes Arsenal need to be more resilient if they are to succeed.

“Yes – this is how Premier League football is. It’s really good, it’s really strong.

“It’s not a surprise they have been moaning because they have plenty of technical players,” he insisted.