Arsene Wenger was delighted with the resilience shown by his league leaders during yesterday's 1-0 win over Newcastle at St James's Park, reports the Guardian.
The Gunners have been continually written off throughout the season, by pundits who believe they do not have the winning mentality to last the distance in the title race after an eight year trophy drought.
But Wenger believes the back-to-back away wins at West Ham and Newcastle - which have propelled his side back to the top of the Premier League - have answered a lot of questions about his side.
"In the last 15 minutes ,we have shown another aspect of our team - resilience, fight. We threw our bodies in the box," the Frenchman was quoted as saying by Arsenal.com.
"You have seen today a technical aspect of our team that was quite good but as well a mental aspect that was needed in a game of that stature.
"There is something in the team that is special on the mental front where we have many times been questioned.
"But we have shown that at West Ham when we were 1-0 down, we have shown that again today when we were a bit backs to the wall in the last 15 minutes. There's a great solidarity and a great spirit in the side."
Arsenal missed the opportunity to go five points clear at the top of the table earlier in the month, after a 1-1 draw with Everton at the Emirates, and a 6-3 thrashing at the Etihad.
But overall Wenger is delighted with the way his team have come out of the hectic Christmas period.
"We've come out of very difficult games," Wenger said.
"We played Everton, we played Man City, Chelsea, at West ham, at Newcastle and we dropped some points but I felt it was more down to the heavy schedule and short recovery time we had than to the difficulty of the games."
