Sunday's 0-0 draw at Chelsea was a significant improvement on Aresneal's previous away game at Liverpool where they lost 4-0 amid speculation over the futures of both Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Alexis Sanchez.
Oxlade-Chamberlain has since made the move to Liverpool, but Sanchez was a substitute at Stamford Bridge as he is still returning to full fitness.
Wenger said his players were less distracted against Chelsea and might have even won the game if they were not hindered by their memories of Anfield.
"The difference is that we are not in the transfer period," the Arsenal boss said after the game.
"And on the day we were not before an important international game with players going away.
"As well, we realised what we delivered was not good enough overall, but I must say we are all human beings and when you play 50 or 55 games it can happen that there's a bad performance, unfortunately.
"I believe we were focused [against Chelsea]. If we are not focused today we do not get away with a point. We were focused, determined, showed character and when we had the ball we tried to play every time.
"I think we were close to winning this game. It is a good basis to start from and go from strength to strength.
"You could still feel sometimes, because of what happened [against Liverpool], there was a little inhibition. With a bit more freedom, I believe we would have won the game."
Wenger even admitted that his players, who beat Cologne in the Europa League in midweek, had spent more hours working on tactics before the Liverpool defeat than they did for the draw at Chelsea.
"I must say we worked more on it before the Liverpool game because we had more time to prepare," he added.
"This week we played midweek games and overall, sometimes it is like that.
"I told you we have a capacity to be strong away from home and we have shown that today."