Arsene Wenger faced the media after Arsenal's 6-0 win against Lyon in the Emirates Cup on Saturday. You can read a full transcript of his press conference below:
on the win…
It was a good, dynamic, collective performance where we could see that many players scored goals. Overall it’s in the continuity of what we did at the end of last season, and we’ve taken that form into pre-season as well. There’s a good team dynamic and we’ve shown again that we can score goals, which is what everybody expects from us.
on Wolfsburg…
It will be a similar game again with a team who has good quality, They are one of the top teams in Germany and they are fighting against Bayern, and may even be at the same level. It will be a good test again.
on starting the season quickly…
We have more cohesion than at the same period last year. Everybody has a better focus. Last year was a post-World Cup year and some players came back mentally exhausted. Hopefully we can take advantage of that this season.
on Mesut Ozil…
He missed the whole first part of the season last year and he came back to his best level in the second part of the season. Hopefully he can deliver a whole season now.
on six different scorers…
Football is subtle. It’s not mathematics. There’s a logic in the game that means that you create chances when all of your quality players play for each other. Every game is different. I still say that after the game tonight we are open-minded but we are not in a desperate need, because we were missing Welbeck and Alexis who are big players. We did not have Wilshere who is a creative player as well. That means we have a good squad.
on not having a desperate need for a player…
It depends what you call a desperate need. When you score six goals, I concede that you don’t have a desperate need. We won the FA Cup final scoring four goals. We score goals, and that’s what I mean by that. We can create chances and we can score goals. We are open-minded but everybody is on the market. Many clubs have big, big budgets.
on Ozil winning over fans…
He had a difficult start to the season but slowly, in the second part of the season, he won over our fans. Feeling the reaction now in the crowd, I feel that he has their support.
on a perfect platform to play youngsters…
Of course it is. One of the advantage of pre-season games like that is that it’s competitive and it’s a good opportunity to see some promising talents. We saw Alex Iwobi, Jeff Reine-Adelaide, Chuba Akpom and because they practice with us it makes it easier for them to integrate into the team.
on making a statement for the Premier League title…
Let’s be cautious on that front. We finished third in the league and won the FA Cup last season. That’s a good basis, of course. Our target is to do better. We know that we will put all of our effort in and that it will be very difficult because it will be a big challenge. We just want to focus on our quality. Top-level sport requires you to get the best out of your potential, so to achieve that it’s important that we focus on our own performance and do not worry too much about the others. We just have to focus on being as good as we can be.
on a selection headache…
On one side the questions in the press is, ‘How do you keep everybody happy?’, and on the other hand, one minute later they ask me, ‘Why don’t you buy any more players?’. So, if I cannot keep the ones I already have happy why should I buy more? I think our squad is well balanced quality wise and numbers wise because of the number of games we have we need everybody. Because it is a competition it is part of our job.
on an ideal squad size....
At the moment some players might go out on loan. At the moment Alex Iwobi will be staying with us but for the others we have to decide do they need the experience to play somewhere on a regular basis, to finish their education. It is always difficult to decide because they go out and they don't play they waste that time because here they practice with top-level players. So that's always very sensitive.
on Jack Wilshere…
Wilshere is okay and will play tomorrow. I rested him today.
on Petr Cech…
Petr Cech will play tomorrow.
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