Arsenal winger Theo Walcott believes the team owed manager Arsene Wenger a big performance to get their Barclays Premier League campaign back on track.
The Gunners thumped Blackburn 7-1 at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday - their first league win of 2012 - which saw them close the gap on fourth-placed Chelsea to three points after the Blues' 3-3 draw against Manchester United on Sunday.
Walcott feels it was about time the Arsenal players got it right after a frustrating spell in which they lost three successive league games and missed several chances in a stalemate at Bolton.
"The boss always takes a lot of stick from everyone criticising him, but us players need to look up to him because he's been taking it all," the England international said.
"We are the ones who go out there and put out the performances and sometimes they have not been good enough."
Walcott, quoted on the club's official website, added: "There are so many world-class players in the dressing room, so it is disappointing when we come back from Bolton with a 0-0 draw where we had a lot of chances.
"I has just been one of those frustrating seasons.
"Hopefully a lot of those frustrations came out against Blackburn, where everybody stood up for themselves."
Walcott set up the opener for captain Robin van Persie inside two minutes, then laid on a second for his skipper, who would eventually complete a hat-trick, before a mazy run ended with Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain scoring number five at the start of the second half.
The performances of 18-year-old Oxlade-Chamberlain have led to calls for him to be fast-tracked into the senior England side for the upcoming friendly against Holland, although the former Southampton trainee is wary of things moving too quickly.
Walcott, who was a controversial selection for the 2006 World Cup when still a teenager, has often found himself criticised for a lack of end product - something against which his captain launched a fierce defence at the weekend.
The 22-year-old, however, sees the bigger picture.
He said: "One of my main jobs as a winger is to get assists. The goals are a secondary thing.
"Some of them against Blackburn were just tap-ins so it was like a goal really. I hope it made Robin's job easy."
Wenger did not make any major moves in the January transfer window, reflecting in an interview with a Belgian newspaper the importance of securing a "profit of between 15 and 20million pounds" every season, and that the purpose of a coach is "to always buy at a price he sees fit".
Arsenal's spending power is certainly not what it once was, and is dwarfed in comparison to the likes of Chelsea and cash-rich Manchester City.
That has seen the Gunners - who have a long-term debt repayments at a fixed interest rate against their 2006 move to the Emirates Stadium - need to look for additional commercial revenue streams.
Last summer the club broke with tradition and embarked upon an overseas tour to the Far East which was seen, from a marketing point of view at least, as an unqualified success.
Arsenal are expected to follow a similar schedule in 2012, having postponed their Emirates Cup tournament because of the Olympics, with games in Hong Kong, Beijing and Seoul as well as a trip to Nigeria said to be on the agenda.
Like many English top-flight clubs, the Gunners already have a strong foothold in South Korea and signed captain Park Ju-young in August.
However, the striker has so far enjoyed little game time in Arsenal colours, a goal against Bolton in the Carling Cup the only real glimpse of his talent.
South Korea coach Choi Kang-hee was in Europe to scout some of his squad and admitted it could be difficult to expect the 26-year-old - left on the bench against Blackburn - to be thrown straight in for the World Cup qualifier with Kuwait on February 29.
"He has at least some positive thoughts, as he is with a world-class team like Arsenal, but he is not playing in games and I felt that Park is not on Wenger's mind," Choi told reporters, as quoted by Korea Joongang Daily.
"I have listed two or three players per position at this moment, but even if a player has great skills, he can't play in the match if he is not ready."
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