Theo Walcott and Mesut Ozil faced the media after Arsenal’s 2-1 win against Manchester City at Emirates Stadium on Monday. You can read the full transcript below:
on the win…
TW: Man City had a lot of the ball but everyone did their defensive duties today. It was a cracking strike and it came out of nowhere. We didn’t really get threatened but it is special moments like that which define games. Yaya had one of his own but we managed to stay strong. It’s a shame we didn’t get a clean sheet which we desperately wanted for Petr in goal, but we got the three points and that’s all that matters in the title race.
on his goal…
TW: In a big match like that it is always important to get on the scoresheet but most important is the three points. That’s the sort of player I am, that I’d rather see the team do well than myself. It’s always nice to score and it’s not easy to get past an England goalkeeper. Not just that, but it was an important time as the second goal was just before half-time. It completely drained them going into half-time and we were all buzzing. We had to dig in deep.
on physical effort…
MO: We have played a lot of games in the last few weeks but we are happy to beat Manchester City. We will take the three points and all of us are happy about it.
on whether he is in the form of his life…
MO: I’m happy to help the team. You see on the pitch that my team-mates help me to play my game. I just help them in return so today was another important game for us. I tried to give my best and we won the game, so we take the three points and that’s the most important thing.
on playing with Mesut…
TW: It’s amazing. He’s very modest. The thing about Mesut is that he sees things that most players don’t even see on the pitch. He knows what he’s going to do before he does it, you just have to make that run. We’ve got special players on the pitch who provide special moments in the match, and that makes our jobs so much easier. It’s a team game but you need these players in your team if you want to continue to play as well as we are at the moment. The amount he gives to this team, the threat going forward and also defensively, he puts a shift in and people don’t see that side of the game which has changed in the whole squad. Everyone’s working hard and I completely cramped at the end when I was chasing Yaya, but it just shows the amount of hard work that everyone’s put in this week. It’s difficult when you don’t play for eight days, to be able to get yourself up for it. The guys are going to be totally knackered tonight and they probably won’t get any sleep either.
on belief…
MO: We believe in ourselves. Look at the results against the big clubs and you’ll see that we’ve won against them, so we know our quality if we can play our game. We will give our best all season to try to win the title.
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