Granit Xhaka fears Arsenal’s lack of mental strength could ‘kill’ them

Granit Xhaka fears Arsenal’s lack of mental strength could cost them Champions League qualification.

The hard-tackling Swiss midfielder still believes Arsenal can finish in the top four with wins from their remaining games, but is worried their fragile mentality – particularly away from home – ‘will kill us.’

Arsenal will look to reverse a damaging run of three consecutive Premier League defeats with a win on Sunday against a Brighton side that has been fighting for survival in recent weeks.

Arsenal trained on Saturday on the eve of their Premier League home game with Brighton

And Xhaka is at a loss to explain Arsenal’s inconsistency at a stage when they seemed odds on to make a return to Europe’s elite competition in coach Unai Emery’s first season as Arsene Wenger’s replacement.

He said: ‘It’s difficult to explain why away we don’t take the same points from every game. It’s maybe a bit of the mentality. The small differences at this level, the small details are so important. I don’t have the right words to say why we don’t take the points.

‘It’s so frustrating. We take a lot of points at home. If you look at our home form it’s so good. This is the same thing that killed us last year. We hope it won’t kill us this year.

‘But it’s difficult. You see the last three games. If you don’t take one point from three games it is difficult. If we’d just win one of the three games, we’d be in fourth place.’

Three points on Sunday and a win at Burnley might not be enough to secure fourth place although winning the Europa League is possible after Thursday night’s 3-1 semi-final first leg win over Valencia.

Xhaka is convinced Arsenal will get what they deserve and explained: ‘Lucky? Nothing in life is lucky. You deserve or you don’t deserve. But if you see how you look at how many points total at home we deserve to be in the Champions League. But if you see the other side (away form), not so.

Gunners manager Unai Emery clutched a red clipboard as he watched his players train

Mesut Ozil (left) and Matteo Guendouzi (centre) were among the Arsenal players who trained

‘If we win the Europa League, it’s a title and you go straight through to the Champions League. Of course, maybe it’s a little nicer.

‘But Premier League is our first target. It’s 38 games and we’re still there. Maybe everything is not in our own hands but we want to end the season by getting into the Champions League.

‘It would be a good platform for the boss. He’s been here nine months at a new club. Everything is new. But he has a lot of experience in the Europa League and he can show and give this experience to us. But it’s about us showing it on the pitch.’

Brighton will not represent a straight-forward task as their stoic performance in a late narrow defeat at Arsenal’s top-four rivals Tottenham showed.

Xhaka concluded: ‘I saw that game – which was 90 minutes in their own box, they just defend, defend. Tottenham were lucky in the end. We have to try and score early in this game, then the game will open up.’