A hat-trick from Santi Cazorla and goals from Theo Walcott and Lukas Podolski helped Arsenal easily dispatch Reading at the Madejski Stadium on Monday.

Wenger expressed his delight at the manner of victory, which came after a disastrous Capital One Cup exit to League Two club Bradford last week.

"The target was to win in a convincing way," he told reporters.

"We focused on playing the game. At 4-0 we had a little wobbling period. And at 4-2, after what happened last week, we became a bit uncertain. We lost a bit of focus and paid for it.

"But overall it was important to go out and play and give the right answer on the football pitch."

Wenger hailed Walcott's performance in a central striking role and confidently predicted his team will continue to improve.

"In training sessions he has shown the abilities to play in this position - the timing of his movement - and for his first game I think he has done very well. There are very encouraging signs," Wenger said.

"We had pace, that was the target in the build-up to the game and overall we gave them many problems through that."

Reading manager Brian McDermott was pleased with his team's reaction after falling behind, and believes his team's survival hopes will be shaped by results in other matches.

"In the first half they played very well and we didn't get close to them. We changed shape in the second half and got better, got two goals but the fifth killed the game," he said.

"We could have got tighter in the first half. Their three midfield players were excellent, but the second-half response was good from our point of view."

"That game won't shape our season. We've got a lot of home games to come which will be defining for us."