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Wenger on victory, Alexis, Bellerin

Arsène Wenger spoke to the media after Arsenal beat West Bromwich Albion 2-0 on Thursday night.

Here's a transcript of what the manager said:

on the win…
I believe we dominated from the start to the last minute, in fact what we did against Crystal Palace. Overall I believe the quality of our game was very good. Maybe, we could have scored more goals. That is the only thing you could say tonight. We didn’t concede and couldn’t finish the game off the way we wanted.

on Iwobi…
He is improving game after game because he is just coming in. That is another positive from the season. He has shown quality game after game and he is surprising. His consistency is surprising, because he has only played youth football and suddenly he plays at that pace. I’m a bit cautious with him sometimes, but overall what he produces is a football player.

on Alexis…
He had a top quality first half and I think he dropped a bit in the second half physically. Overall, his contribution was vital today.

Alexis celebrates his second v West Brom

on the importance of the win…
You look at the time like us, every point is important at the moment. I think we are under permanent pressure in every single game so it is important to have the lead and focus on the way we want to play football.

on the early goal…
Ideally, you want to always score early goals but the Premier League is the Premier League and it is difficult for everyone at the top of the table. There are top, top teams behind us, and because Leicester City is in front, everyone thinks that we should have done it. Yes okay, you can see that for any other team. Leicester were bottom of the table last year, so all the 19 teams can say it.

on home matches at Emirates Stadium…
If you love football, you go out there and I think you see quality football. That’s what we try to give to our people. It was a special night as well, Thursday night, and I don’t know if you are intelligent enough, nor am I, to detect exactly why everybody that did not turn up tonight did not turn up.

on the game clashing with Masterchef…
That’s a good reason maybe [for the game not selling out]!

on if he’s looking over his shoulder or looking above…
We want to finish as high as possible. You never know what happens in front of you. There can still be twists and turns but we want to win our games. We came out of West Ham and Crystal Palace thinking we had produced the quality and didn’t get the points. If you look at our last five games, we won at Everton, we won against Watford, we had two draws and we won today. The regret we have is being in the lead against West Ham and being in the lead against Crystal Palace and not getting the points. I don’t know where we’ll finish but we have to give everything in every game. We go to Sunderland, Sunderland fight not to go down. That will be a battle and we have to prepare for that.

on Kieran Gibbs’ absence from the squad…
[He had] a back problem. It looks short term. He had a training session today.

on Giroud’s lack of goals…
Of course it’s affecting him. Tonight he hit the head of the keeper and at the moment he looks for a goal.

on Bellerin’s inclusion in the PFA Team of the Year…
He was like Iwobi last year, that means he came into the squad and continued to develop. For Iwobi that’s a good way to follow, to move even a step up next season. The positive of the season is that Hector has been consistent. He was outstanding in the first half as well.

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