Arsenal FC 0-1 AS Monaco
on the form Arsenal showed…
We have made a demonstration that in 24 hours a lot can change in football. As much as our performance was sharp, creative, dynamic and mobile [on Saturday], today it was static, lethargic and not convincing at all. I feel that many players had not recovered completely physically and that we were not completely ready. But congratulations to Monaco. They were better than us. Sharper, stronger and we lost the game because we deserved to lose the game.
on his players’ form…
I’m not especially concerned. It’s part of the pre-season and it just is a good warning for us that we are not completely ready physically. The positives are that we had to dig deep for some players to play and that we got no injuries.
on what role Alexis will fulfil…
I don’t know yet because Giroud is not ready at all so I thought I’d take him out because he didn’t look ready. It was an opportunity for me as well to see Sanchez in the second half as a centre forward. He looked better in the second half than in the first. But that was also because Oxlade-Chamberlain gave us something we needed – some penetration and some power. Overall, the second half we dominated much more of the game than in the first half, when we were dominated.
Arsenal FC 5-1 Benfica Lisboa
on whether the win is a sign of things to come…
I think it’s very difficult to draw any conclusions like that. Benfica might be in a different level of preparation. We are not completely ready, what is important is that during important spells of the game we played the way we wanted to play football – that is the most positive thing. Our game is based on movement, technical skill and togetherness in the final third so overall that’s the positive side of our game today.
on Sanogo and Cambpell’s potential…
A headache is when they don’t play well. We have some decisions to make when everybody plays well, that’s true. But when everybody plays well that’s what we want. They need to play of course but they need to play here. Sanogo came last year on a free and we worked very hard for six months with him and from January onwards he was slowly getting better. Now that we have worked very hard with him, we want him to stay here.
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