Arsene Wenger addressed the media after his side were beaten 3-0 by Everton at Goodison Park on Sunday afternoon.
Read a transcript of what he had to say below:
on the performance…
Our performance was not convincing, defensively not offensively. Everton were better than us and deserved to win. It's a very disappointing result and a very disappointing performance, the two go together and we have to regroup, come back to basics and prepare well for our next game. I congratulate Everton on a convincing performance.
on the fight for fourth…
The fight is very open and is not even depending only on us. It's depending on Everton who are in a strong position. But the advantage we have is we have been confronted with that before and it's down to how we respond to such a disappointing performance.
on struggling away from home…
You're right yes but until then we were very strong away from home, we had the best record in the Premier League. Certainly psychologically we have lost a bit of confidence. Today as well we were behind early, Everton were very good on the counter-attacks but I still feel we had a lot of the ball but were not really dangerous.
on why they were not dangerous…
Because Everton defended well and because at the moment we lack a bit of confidence to be really dangerous and we lack penetration as well. You feel from outside that the penetration and incisiveness of our game is missing through the runs and through the passes. Both of them together make it difficult.
on being confident of making the top four…
I'm absolutely 100 per cent determined to fight to make the top four. But it will be difficult. We still have a programme that is feasible but we have first I think to focus on the quality of our performances before we dream of places. Let's get back to playing better than that.
on not responding after big defeats…
I wouldn't question the spirit of this team. They are focused, they want to do well. I just feel they have lost something on the confidence front and that you could see. We looked a little bit disjointed when we had to run after the score.
on fear of not qualifying for the Champions League…
I don't know. It's very difficult to identify that it's fear. I would just say that maybe our big defeats away from home have taken some of the charisma away from the team. Is that fear, is that belief, is that confidence? Maybe a bit all together.
Copyright 2024 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.
