‘There’s a difference in what we create and score’

Twenty two shots on goal, and no reward once again.

It was a frustrating night for us at the London Stadium on Wednesday as we were held to a goalless draw against West Ham.

Afterwards, Arsene Wenger faced the media and this is what he said:

on the performance…

There are some draws that are frustrating, this is one of them because we had a lot of the ball and we played against 10 men. It was 10 against 10 in the final third and we couldn’t find an opening, a little bit through the fact that they defended very well. They are in a highly defensive phase, focused on that at the moment and it works for them, but they did that against City, Chelsea and here. We lacked maybe a little bit of sharpness in the final third we had many different good opportunities where they blocked our shots. I think that’s where you see maybe if we played on Sunday and they played on Saturday it would have been different on that front because they had more physical resources to defend with a lot of decisiveness.

on the winless run…

At the moment I don’t deny that, but it is a moment where our performances are not reflected by our results because against Manchester United we had 33 shots on goal but did not win the game and at Southampton we had a lot of possession and it was a similar game to tonight basically. It’s true, it’s a bit frustrating, we had to keep confidence in our game and we go through a patch where there’s a difference between what we create and what we score, but that will not last.

on whether it’s psychological…

I felt that the 33 shots on goal against Manchester United and the chances we missed had a little impact there, but we need to continue focusing on the quality of our game and not to focus too much on the fact that we are not ruthless at the moment. That will come back by not making too big a problem of it. There are periods like that where adjusted finishing is not right.

on being 19 points behind Manchester City…

I don’t want to talk about that. It’s good to make headlines, but we need to focus on our next game. City is too far away to talk about the title at the moment. There’s one thing that we are far away but it’s another thing to just give up. You don’t give up. Our job is to fight as long as we can and give our best. It’s not to focus too much on anything else.

on whether he’s surprised some managers have conceded that City will win PL already…

I don’t listen to all that stuff too much. You want to fight, our job is to fight and to continue to give everything and then see where you finish. You know very well what’s going on with City. We faced that problem with City like everyone else in the league.

on whether seventh is a fair reflection of where we are as a team…

The table is the table but it’s not a definite one today. We’ve just played two away games in difficult places. Let’s see after Christmas and January. It’s a long way to go until then.