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Wenger on the draw and missed chances

Arsene Wenger addressed the media after his side's 0-0 draw at home to Southampton.

Here's what he said:

on frustration…
It is, because we produced quite a good performance, especially in the second half when we created 10 goal chances. At the end of the day we came out with no goals. I believe the performance we wanted to produce was there, but we cannot be happy with the way we finished our chances. I think what’s most disappointing is some players missed some chances that usually they would take. Our finishing is very bad at the moment – we have played three [league] games now without scoring a goal. In all those three games we had chances that we didn’t take. At that level it’s important.

on the start…
We started slowly but in the first half Ozil had two great chances. It’s true we started slowly, a bit nervous because we lost our last game at home. But in the second half it was one-way traffic. We still couldn’t score. We didn’t make enough of our set-pieces, we didn’t take them well, we didn’t finish well. It’s just that our finishing was very poor. 

on Forster…
He had a good game, a brilliant game, but you expect that. You rate the quality of the chances you create and the quality of the finishing. The quality of the chances we created today, considering it’s a Premier League game, was high. The quality of the finishing was poor. That differential explains the 0-0.

on the frustration...
It’s maximum frustrating, when your team puts the energy in and creates the chances. When you have no chances you come out of the game thinking ‘OK, there was not more in it.’ When you come out and you think there was much more in the game like that [tonight], when you have our ambition of course it’s frustrating. 

on the difference at the top...
Leicester won again and now I am sure that everybody will take them very seriously, especially in the media, so they will be under pressure as well. But we have not to look too much at Leicester or Man City, we have to win football games. We have to focus on how to respond quickly and win our next game, that's all we can do. It’s a dream to think you will catch the others if you do not win your games. In the past three games we have taken two points.

on if the players are under pressure...
No, honestly I don’t believe that. If we could not play, could not create chances I would say yes you are right. But [we had] practically 70 per cent possession today, and 22 shots on goal. Finishing is a bit cyclic, up and down, at the moment I must say it’s very down.

on if he’s worried that Arsenal will tail off…
Look, we’ll see at the end of the season. It’s too early to say that. It’s true that we’ve had a stutter since the start in 2016. Our January was bad, starting from the last minute at Liverpool, and then at Stoke. Where we especially have a big deficit is in our two home games. We played with 10 men for the whole game against Chelsea and today we created 10 chances and didn’t score. That’s where we have the deficit at the moment. We have to catch that back and we have a difficult programme, especially away from home. We need to respond quickly away from home now.

on if he should have signed a striker…
If you knew a world-class striker who could have strengthened our team, you should have told me before the transfer deadline was over. They do not walk in the street and say ‘please, here is a world-class striker, can you take me?’ They are all at big clubs and are under contract. There were none available. We have Walcott, we have Giroud, we have Ozil, we have Alexis, we have Welbeck, who is coming back. If tonight we think a miracle man could have scored the goal for us... I think it’s better we think how can we score the goals with the players we have. We can score goals, we have shown that before.

on if it was ‘one of those nights’…
I don’t like ‘one of those nights’ because I would just like us to take the chances we created. We are all disappointed because we had enough chances to win the game and didn’t. The difference between the chances created and the goals scored is too big tonight.

on how to make sure the players don’t have doubts…
By reminding the players about what we want to achieve, how we can achieve it, and how much quality they have. Look, let’s not be over-pessimistic as well. We have qualified in the FA Cup, we are in the Champions League, we have a big opportunity at the end of the month. We are still in the fight in the Premier League, so let’s as well be a bit realistic, even if we are very down tonight. I don’t hide that but I believe as well that top-quality people respond when they are in trouble. That’s a good way to do it.

on if the England squad is moving in right direction…
Yeah, especially with their goalkeepers. 

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