Arsène Wenger spoke to the media after his side beat Newcastle United 4-1 at Emirates Stadium. Read on for a full transcript from the boss' press conference:
on two 4-1 wins in five days…
We can score goals and we showed that again tonight. Overall it was a dynamic game where defensively - despite the fact that we were depleted at the back - we were quite solid. Going forward we always looked dangerous. In the end we won in a convincing way. We scored four goals and that was needed. The response was strong after the Stoke City game and let’s go well over Christmas.
on the supporters chanting his name…
I’m grateful for that and I enjoy it but the most important thing is the way we play football and I think [what] is most important is that our fans go home happy because we have played well and won.
on Giroud’s second goal…
It was a great goal. The Santi Cazorla goal was a great goal as well and a great pass from Alexis Sanchez. Bellerin got the ball from Oxlade-Chamberlain and made a great cross that Olivier deflected in with the outside [of his boot]. We scored great goals. The first three goals were great and I couldn’t see what was wrong with the Welbeck goal in the first half. I have to see it again but we always looked like we could score goals.
Olivier Giroud
on what Giroud gives the team…
He’s still not 100 per cent there but he gives a presence. He links up well, plays good one-twos and protects the ball well. When we have to kick the ball long because Newcastle closed down our centre backs well, you always have a good chance to win the ball.
on another good Alexis performance…
I cannot fault any performance today because I think everybody played well.
on making their mark on the league…
We have an opportunity to do it and that’s the challenge.
on the difference between the Stoke game and this one…
I’m a bit scared to say that but at Stoke we missed the start of the game and defensively. You look at the chances we had at Stoke and we could have scored four or five there as well and we finished the game with 10 men. Defensively we were not at the races from the start and we paid the price for that. The fluency going forward was not disastrous, it was our defending that was not good.
on Ramsey and Koscielny’s injuries…
I have a better idea. Ramsey will be out for a few weeks and Koscielny as well. They will not be back next week.
on whether Arsenal play the most creative football in the Premier League…
We try. I don’t think we are the most [creative]. It’s always the same in football - you try to attack to go forward and if you win everybody says well done, when you don’t win everybody says you’re not realistic enough. I think our target is to combine keeping our style and defending well as well - that’s what we did today.
on Arsenal’s confidence…
In the last six games we’ve won five. We need a few more wins to completely lift the confidence. You could see at some stage we were a bit edgy sometimes when it was 3-1 and the crowd as well felt the ghost of Anderlecht here a little bit. We need a few more games.
on the fans…
My job is to win football games and make people happy. What happened last week, I said on television, I [have] worked for 18 years in this country and I’m grateful for that. I’ve been accepted 99.9 per cent with a big respect. I can take the 0.01 per cent and live with it. My job is to make people happy - if they are not happy, I have to live with it.
on management being like a ‘permanent tribunal’…
It is a little bit. On one side we benefit from it because our supporters become extremely popular. On the other side, the negative is that everybody talks about it and has opinions that are maybe a little bit more difficult to live with when it doesn’t go well.
on the Champions League draw…
We have been well served in the recent years. Maybe I will go to church over the weekend.
Copyright 2024 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.
