‘You’ve got to give credit to Lincoln’

After a tense first half against Lincoln City, we were heading into the break goalless until Theo Walcott fired us into the lead.

The England forward slotted Kieran Gibbs’ pass into the bottom corner before strikes from Olivier Giroud, Alexis, Aaron Ramsey and Luke Waterfall’s own goal capped off a dominant second-half performance.

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“We went out there and did a job,” Walcott said. “It was always going to be really tense in the first half, and it was crucial to go into the break at 1-0 up.

“Generally, we know that fitness is going to come into play and you’ve got to give credit to them. They were fantastic before our goals, so it was just a step too far for them. It just shows the love of the FA Cup hasn’t gone. That was a very crucial goal.

“We did the right things, we probably just had to up the tempo, that was the one thing. You can see when you go 3-0 or 4-0 up that you start to save your legs a little bit, and players are trying things that they wouldn’t usually try.

“We tried to stay very professional to respect Lincoln. The guys were professional today and it’s a good result after a very tough few weeks, so we’ve got to give credit to everyone in that dressing room.

“You’ve got to remember that and we’re in an FA Cup semi-final at Wembley as well. It’s a good achievement already. We’re just going to concentrate on ourselves. We’re not going to look at what other people say. It’s obviously a very good result so we’ve got to move on from it. We’ve got to focus on the next game.”