Arsene Wenger is asked about a range of subjects during his pre-match press conferences - and that was no different on Thursday.
The Arsenal manager discussed our Carabao Cup third-round draw against Doncaster, Wayne Rooney’s international retirement and more.
This is what he said:
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on the mood in the squad…
The mood is determined and focused and we are in preparation mode for our next game.
on Doncaster in the Carabao Cup…
We want to do well in the League Cup, it is a good opportunity to give the young players a chance and we have some good young players who have done well in training. The League Cup will continue to offer that.
on Liverpool and Coutinho - and how you handle that situation…
Every situation is different. It depends sometimes on what has been agreed between you and the players. So it’s very difficult for me to interfere in that because I don’t know what’s happening between Coutinho and Liverpool. I have enough to deal with my own situations here. I don’t know where he stands towards Liverpool or where Liverpool stands towards him. It’s difficult to say. I’m not even sure that Barcelona is in for him, I don’t know.
on how difficult it is to keep players that want to leave…
It’s always difficult because you want your players to be happy. The players have as well contracts. In general you want the players to stay with their club when they have contracts. But every situation is different and you have to really know internally what is going on.
on Rooney’s international retirement and if he supports it…
I think it’s the right thing, yes. He has given a lot to England. He’s one of the last of the great generation who had the bad luck maybe not to win the World Cup for example. That doesn’t take away that he has made a great contribution for England and what he has done is absolutely remarkable. I believe he is at the stage of his career where he has to focus on the club if you want to play regularly, and it’s the right decision.
on big teams dropping points already and what it says for league…
I don’t know, it’s too early. Tottenham and Chelsea played against each other, so somebody had to drop points. Everton got a surprising result at City with a quality game. On our side, I think we dropped points we should not have dropped at all. The points we dropped at Stoke [when you look at] all the history of the years, we should less have dropped. We had 77 per cent possession and a huge number of goal chances. Overall it’s too early to come to any conclusion.
on having good memories of games at Anfield…
We’ve had good memories and sometimes bad memories as well. It’s true that we’ve done well at Anfield in the past and we want to do well again.
on how easy it is to qualify for the Champions League when you’re not in it…
In my case, I don’t know because it’s the first time I’ve been in the Europa League. I believe that, nowadays, in England the Premier League has overtaken the Champions League in terms of preparation because you feel that the Premier League games are more difficult than Champions League group-stage qualifiers. I don’t speak about after the group stage, but many times it happens to you that when you go to smaller teams, you rest some players because you know you have a big Premier League game on Saturday. On that front, the Premier League has overtaken the Champions League group stage.
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