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Mustafi says CL still in Gunners' sights

London - Shkodran Mustafi hopes Arsenal have not left it too late to book a place in next season's Champions League.

The Gunners won 2-0 away to Southampton in the Premier League on Wednesday to move to within three points of fourth-placed Manchester City.

Only the top four teams at the end of the season qualify and Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger would love to secure a 20th successive Champions League season.

The veteran French manager has never finished outside the Premier League's top four in a full season in charge, having joined Arsenal in September 1996.

Alexis Sanchez and Olivier Giroud scored for Arsenal in Wednesday's victory at St Mary's. But it remains to be seen if the Gunners can overturn a poor run which saw them lose six of 11 league games.

Germany international Mustafi, back in the side after a thigh injury, was asked if Arsenal were finding their form at the right time.

"Well I wish we found that before," he said, with the Gunners still having three league games left to play this term.

"But now we have three games and we have to give everything, like we did today, to try and get everything out of all the games. Hopefully at the end we'll reach our goals.

Petr Cech, Arsenal's captain against Southampton after Mustafi replaced the injured Laurent Koscielny, added: "Recently we shot ourselves in the foot against Tottenham, because we did not get any points and obviously we left ourselves in the situation where we have to keep winning every game."

The former Chelsea goalkeeper added: "We are aware of the fact that we probably need to win all of our remaining games to be sure that we will be in the race until the last minute."

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