2014 Champions League playoffs
Arsenal 1-0 Besiktas
Coach Wenger reacts:
on Alexis paying off his transfer fee with his goal…
No, I don’t see it like that. He had a good game, not only on the technical side but on the fighting side. He was mobile, dangerous and has shown as well he has great fighting spirit, qualities that will be very important in the Premier League. But overall I feel we produced a performance we wanted on the technical side, on the tactical side and on the mental side. We were at the level that was requested tonight against a good team but we couldn’t finish the game off and that of course [made it] very difficult for us in the last 10 minutes when we were down to ten men.
on Besiktas’ penalty claims…
I haven’t seen it. Maybe we were lucky on the occasion but it’s very difficult. I think [Jack] went for the ball.
on the red card…
We finished the two games with ten men and I feel the first sending off was very harsh and tonight the sending off was very harsh as well because Debuchy went for the ball and he played the ball. There was no intention to make a bad foul or to stop the counter attack – and he won the ball. Maybe the referee was on the other side of the player and thought he made the foul. It was difficult but we dealt with it and in the last 10 minutes it was nervously very difficult.
on not finishing the game off…
I would have loved to because it would have made it a bit easier, but we wanted to qualify and we did it against a very good team. You must give credit to Besiktas when you look at their results in pre-season, you understand why they beat all the teams they met until now because they are a close unit, well organised, physically very strong and technically very good. We kept Ba quiet tonight – he had one chance on the header that was close to the end – that would have killed us but apart from that I thought we kept him quiet tonight.
on Giroud’s injury…
Giroud had surgery today from a broken tibia and he will be out for 3-4 months on the competition side. That means he will be capable to play again in the Premier League certainly at the end of December because he will be out for two months. By the time he comes back, that goes three to four months. You ask me straight away who we will buy? I give you the answer straight away – at the moment nobody.
on who was his Man of the Match…
Maybe [Alexis] Sanchez because he scored the goal but I feel my team was Man of the Match because we fought from the first to the last minute and everybody worked very hard.
on whether he has contacted Zigic…
Zigic? No.
on the possibility of buying any more players…
If you want to make everyone happy, you just always buy players. But what is important is the performance on the football pitch and the solidarity we have shown tonight. Having said that, if you look at the players we have on the bench and those who are injured, we have players. I believe you cannot everytime buy when a player is injured.
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