Manuel Pellegrini has backed Pablo Fornals to repeat the kind of form that persuaded the manager to bring him to West Ham in the summer.
The Spanish midfielder has failed to hit the heights that persuaded West Ham to part company with a £24million fee back in the summer, which has led to some criticism from some of the club's more demanding supporters.However Pellegrini dismissed suggestions that Fornals doesn't have what it takes to succeed in the Premier League by insisting that the former Villareal star - who has made just 16 appearances since arriving in England - will come good in due course.
"Pablo, like most players who arrive in the Premier League needs time to adapt his football," said the boss during his Arsenal press conference on Friday.
"He's a young player that has a good career ahead of him. I'm absolutely sure with more minutes and the team also having good results - because that's important for the confidence of the players - he will be the player that we want."
Meanwhile Pellegrini issued a warning to Fornals and the rest of his squad by insisting that despite their poor run of form, Arsenal - who visit the LOS on Monday evening - remain a formidable opponent.
"I expect to face a team that will try to reverse its recent results," he said. "They have a lot of top players so we cannot be confident that we are going to win the game just because they are not in good form.
"We must try to win the game by producing a good performance.
"It's an important match because we play at home and because we didn't win the last game," he continued. "It's a special game too as it features two London teams.
"It is important to win at home where we couldn't win our last time that we played.
"The result depends on whether we play a good game, are solid in defence and creative in attack. It's strange to find a big team who normally play Champions League in this position, but football is like that."
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