Adebayor: We are back in the title race

Arsenal striker Emmanuel Adebayor believes the club's title dreams are very much "alive" and Sunday's win at Chelsea has "sent a message'' to the rest of the Premier League.

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Adebayor: Frustrating times at an end?

The Togo international insists that the club's troubles are now behind them and the squad will be working as one to close the gap on Chelsea and Liverpool at the top of the table.

Despite the victory at Stamford Bridge being their first in the league since beating Manchester United on November 8 and the gap to the summit being seven points, which Liverpool can extend against West Ham United on Monday evening, Adebayor is in confident mood.

"It is a very big win because we went through a lot of difficult moments and people wrote us off in the Premiership. Now this is a message that we have sent out,'' Adebayor told BBC London Radio.

"We believe in ourselves, we can do something. Forget about what happened - we are always together. We always believed we can do something and these are the kind of results we can show again.

"It would have been very difficult had we lost, but we would have never said the title was finished. We want to keep on going until the end of the season. We know we have a great team, a great squad, everyone is ready for it.

"Now everyone can see we have kept our title dreams alive and the more important thing now is to keep going.''

While Chelsea manager Luiz Felipe Scolari was left incensed by the decision not to rule Robin Van Persie offside for his first goal, calling for an apology from referee Mike Dean and his assistant, the Dutch forward maintains such incidents are all part and parcel of the game.

Van Persie said: "I scored a goal against Chelsea [in a 2-0 home defeat in December 2005]. I was onside, but the ref gave it offside and it didn't count. This time was maybe a little bit offside, but it counted and that's all that matters.''

The Arsenal forward also hailed his team's fighting spirit.

"In the last 20 minutes we showed a lot of character so the whole team deserve a big compliment,'' he said. "When you are playing against Chelsea on their ground and go 1-0 down, you know it is going to be really difficult.''

Victory over Chelsea will count for nothing with Arsenal captain Cesc Fabregas if his men do not go on to repeat the performance across the season.

"We showed a different attitude and that is what we want to do from now on,'' Fabregas told Arsenal's website. "We have a new momentum, but if we do not do the same, then it is not worth it.

"We want to be competitive again in every game and see where we can go until the end of the season. We have shown we can do it, to beat the big teams, so we can have no excuse with not doing it against the rest of the teams.

"We have to be proud of what we did against Chelsea because we are a young side and have had a lot of criticism."

"Sometimes the boss has been the only one who has believed in us,'' the 21-year-old said. "He knows what we can do and we proved against Chelsea that he is not wrong. Now it is up to us to keep going and doing it game by game.''

It was a good end to Fabregas' first week as the new captain, following on from the home win over Dynamo Kiev which secured Arsenal's place in the knockout stages of the Champions League.

"For me, all that is important is the attitude of the team, the discipline and the character we show,'' he said. "When you play next to these guys, you can see the effort they put in and that they are not afraid to play against anyone in the league.

"I am really proud to be their captain and hopefully we can keep going like that.''

Deposed skipper Gallas produced a composed display in defence against his old club - and on another day might have scored to silence the Stamford Bridge boo-boys.

Wenger praised the 31-year-old's attitude.

"I think William was outstanding, absolutely amazing,'' he said. "He came out of that troublesome period with, for me, a lot of credit.

"His commitment is fantastic and he was outstanding, and had already been like that against Dynamo Kiev on Tuesday night. It shows he is a fighter.''