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‘Of course we’re bitterly disappointed’

Read the first quotes from Arsene Wenger’s post-match press conference as the Arsenal boss responds to our 4-3 Premier League defeat to Liverpool

on the disappointing nature of the defeat…
Of course we are bitterly disappointed. It was a contrast between the two halves. We lost this game for many reasons and was one of them is [the psychological impact] of Liverpool making it 1-1 just before half-time. The second one is that physically we are not capable of maintaining the level, because not all the players have the same level of preparation. Maybe we lacked a bit of experience but if you look well at the goals, I don’t think it was necessarily the inexperienced players that cost us the goals today.

on why he played Holding and Chambers together…
If you look well at the goals, it’s not necessarily our defenders who cost us the goals today.

on the physical requirements…
You could see that we dropped physically today. It was a game of contrast between two halves but I felt as well that mentally we kept going and we have been absolutely remarkable on that front. But I believe that the first goal was a big shock for us because we didn’t see that coming in the first half and maybe we didn’t recover from that.

 

Alexis Sanchez looks to the skies

 

on needing to be ready for the first game…
Yes, I agree with you. But we are not stupid. We prepared well the players we have in but I think you have to consider we have been a bit unlucky as well. We have lost Mertesacker and Gabriel in preparation, and Koscielny is not fit. You have to sometimes accept that you cannot control absolutely everything, even if you try to be as intelligent as possible.

on how long it’ll take to get everyone ready…
I don’t know. We have to be ready next week because we go to Leicester. But we’ll see first what we can do with the players who are preparing at the moment and how many players are injured today. Can they recover for next week? I don’t know.

on fitness issues compared to other teams…
Because we had many players that played very late in the Euros - Ramsey, Koscielny, Ozil, Giroud - they went to the semi-finals [at least]. We had four players who went very late.

 

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