Arsene Wenger on Arsenal’s victory 5-3 at Chelsea:
I can only praise my team for their performance at Stamford Bridge.
When Chelsea equalised to make it 3-3 I was unhappy but we didn’t look disappointed on the pitch and we kept going. We knew that we needed a victory and we kept going to win the game.
Overall I feel that we had a good team performance and showed great spirit. When you go 2-1 down just before half time it’s difficult but we came out in the second half with a complete desire to go forward.
In the second half I felt we were much better defensively than in the first half. We gave too many chances away in the first half – it’s partly down to the fact that Chelsea have a lot of strength going forward. But we always looked dangerous and I hope the team strengthens its belief with a performance like that.
Robin van Persie’s is in excellent form. We attack a lot and we create chances and he takes advantage with his class. The intelligence of his movement around the box and the accuracy of his finishing is exceptional.
Laurent Koscielny was also outstanding. He was the one at the back in the first half who looked strong. In the first half we gave Chelsea too much room at the back and in midfield and in the second half we got much tighter. We remained dangerous going forward but we were less in trouble defensively.
We have now won eight of our last nine games. We got half of the team in on August 31 and we had to qualify for the Champions League so that affected us at the start of the season. We had to rebuild our unity in the way we want to play football but every win is making us stronger.
The players are getting used to the way we play so we are stronger but we have to remain humble, keep focus and work very hard together. There is still some ground to make up in the league and teams in front of us do not drop many points. But the quality we showed on Sunday should make us more confident.
We are more consistent now and we have to keep that going. We face Marseille on Tuesday night and that will be another test where we will have to focus and produce our quality again. That’s what is at stake.
