Arsene Wenger faced the media after Arsenal's 2-1 win against Everton at Emirates Stadium on Saturday. You can read a full transcript of his press conference below:
on the win…
We had a massive game on Tuesday night and after that it is a good test for your squad and the hand off to your players. I think we played with the right focus and desire. We were a bit unfortunate in the first half we got caught with one minute to go so it was 2-1 and created a bit of insecurity in the squad. In the second half we continued to dominate but could not get the third goal and then we were a bit exposed on the counter-attack once or twice. Romelu Lukaku had the header on the bar and Petr Cech made a great save with very little time to go and that got us three massive points.
on starting Olivier Giroud…
I have confidence. He recently made the difference coming on and today he made the difference by starting. I have interesting options, I just have to be wise enough to use them at the right moment.
on picking his striker…
We have to put our energy all together to do well for the team and the club so I do not make too much of a individual case for the players. Theo Walcott can also start which makes it easier. Let’s not forget they can play together.
on if Arsenal mean business this year…
I believe that we will keep that solidarity, that desire to do well and I think we are well focused to do well and together we have improved on that front. We know that when we have the ball we can create goal chances. We went to Watford and won 3-0 and beat Bayern Munich 2-0, and beat Everton in one week. It has been a fantastic week. It is not easy.
on Mesut Ozil…
He is a top-class player, honestly. I think rather than talking about him I would rather watch him play again. If you love to watch football, you love to watch Ozil.
on why Ozil is so special…
It is a combination of quality of the touch, intelligence and team attitude. He is a real team player, I said that yesterday in the press conference. He puts his talent at the service of the team and he wants to help the team with everything he does. That makes him efficient.
on being top…
It is 24 hours, but we still don’t know. After the first game against West Ham United nobody would have predicted that. That shows that we rely on our attitude, our togetherness and our desire to do well. After 10 games we are there, that shows we have made some ground up. Let’s keep our togetherness and fight for the future games, that is all we can do. It is very early in the season but we are happy to be where we are.
on if he thought Arsenal would be top…
I thought after 10 games, no. Honestly. I thought it would take much longer because Manchester City started with five wins so it was difficult to envisage that we would come back but we had no choice. Last season after 10 games there was a big difference between the top teams and us, today no. Let’s continue to work together and continue to improve. There are still many aspects to our game which we can improve and therefore let’s not focus too much on the position and try to be a better team.
on having a perfect week…
It is a perfect week and it is not easy to have that. The only negative is that we lost some players through in jury during the week, but I will have to rest some players Tuesday night against Sheffield. I think for some players it will be one game too many for them.
on what it takes to stay at the top…
We need to keep the togetherness, the concentration, the humility and try to play better football game by game and try to focus on that in training as well.
on the importance of Giroud and Walcott…
We just spoke about Ozil and Cazorla. I think what makes us efficient is that we play like a real team. When you watch us play you see a team that plays football, not one player that makes the difference. Our results at the moment are of team effort rather than individuals.
on Koscielny scoring…
We know to fight at the top we need some goals from set-pieces, between eight and twelve if you want to fight at the top. I believe on that front we are a bit short and the fact we could score today will give us belief we can score more.
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