English Premier League: Arsenal 1-2 Manchester United
Coach Arsene Wenger sits down with the media to analyse the first home loss of the season. The Gunners now rank 8th in the League 15 points behind Chelsea.. with no title hopes already!
on the performance…
It’s a game that we dominated for 80 per cent of the time and we haven’t dominated a game like that against Manchester United for a long time. At the end of the day we were not efficient enough in the final third, defensively, and we made a mistake at the back which they took advantage of. That’s the story of the game. We had plenty of chances. Their keeper is man of the match. That tells you the story of the game.
on whether there’s a mental block for these games…
No because we played with freedom and we pressed them very high. We won balls back and we had plenty of opportunities to finish this game off. I think we made a big mistake on the first goal and when you’re 1-0 down you’re too impatient. We were not cautious enough and we gave the second goal away.
on Jack Wilshere and Wojciech Szczesny…
Wojciech is not bad. Jack I don’t know how bad it is because he tried to stay on and couldn’t. It could be an ankle problem, I don’t know how bad it is.
on missing chances…
We missed a few opportunities in the second half, even in the final 20 minutes. You have to be efficient in top-level games and we were not efficient enough in our good periods, but there were a lot of positives in the game today. Even if we are very, very disappointed, we have to keep that and rectify. At the moment defensively we are a bit naive.
on Wilshere’s incident with Fellaini…
I haven’t seen it because it was on the other side and I haven’t seen what happened there well enough. Overall it was a fair game, physically committed but I didn’t see any bad things on the pitch.
on how to see games through after dominating them…
How you stop that is to be more efficient. That will be linked with confidence and the fact that we have to be a bit more calm and patient. At the moment we are after success and there’s a discordance with our possession, our chances we create and our result. It’s very difficult but we have to keep faith in what we do.
on whether Arsenal should have had a penalty…
Maybe. Maybe not, I don’t know.
on whether the second goal was due to a lack of communication…
It was just after a corner and we were not cautious enough. I don’t know why we had nobody at the back at all – you could see straight away that giving a two against one in your own half means you will be punished against these players.
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