“In my job, people who like losing - believe me - they don’t last a long time.”
Arsene Wenger is the first to admit he doesn’t take defeats well, and he had to suffer one in midweek.
The 2-1 reverse at Everton was only our third of the season - and our first in the Premier League since the opening day. Now Wenger wants an instant response at Manchester City on Sunday.
“Yes of course [it disappointed me],” he said. “We looked in control and I believe we were in control even though we lost the game.
“When you analyse it, they had a good response between 20 and 45 minutes, but in the second half we were completely in control of the game and we lost it on bad luck. I believe because it was not a corner and some decisions when you watch the game again were questionable. That is just part of it.
“Could we have won the game despite that? I have to say yes. That is where we have to be objective and analyse it. We can only master what we an influence ourselves. That is where maybe we have to analyse that well and not look for excuses, but really see where we failed to win the game.
“In my job, people who like losing - believe me - they don’t last a long time. And concerning the referee: yes, I don’t agree with the performance of the referee against us on Tuesday night but I didn’t say a word about it [after the game].
“It’s the old trick that the journalists, young journalists who are very ambitious, do. They take a lie into the [press conference] question for the next manager and hope he responds to it. If you read well what I said after the game, you will see that I didn’t say a word about the referee.
“What is important is that we respond straight away,” added Wenger. “I feel we had quite a good game [at Everton] but were not repaid. Maybe we did not manage to transform our chances into goals, but the attitude was there. We want to go into the next game to respond straight away with a positive result.”
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