Reading 2-5 Arsenal, Cazorla’s 1st hat-trick in EPL
Coach Arsene Wenger quotes:
on the performance…
The target was to win and we won in a convincing way. You can only give one answer – on the pitch. Success came with the quality of our game.
on what was pleasing…
We played and didn’t bother about the rest. We focused on the quality of our game and played. I think it was in continuity of the game we played against West Brom. That’s what we did again tonight.
on Cazorla’s performance…
Santi Cazorla is a top-class player and he just illustrates that he’s a good buy.
on using Walcott as a striker…
If you look at my statements two years ago, I said he will play in the middle. I think slowly it became his idea as well. I felt it was a good opportunity to do it tonight. On what I’ve seen in training, I thought he was ready to do it.
on if Walcott will play up front against Wigan…
I don’t know yet. It’s too early to say that just after the game.
on how well the team can do…
I don’t know. What I believe is our ambition is to finish as high as we can and win our next game. That’s all we can do – that and focus on the quality of our football. The game is based on movement and technical quality and that demands freedom of initiative. When you’re in a crisis, of course that suffers a little bit sometimes. We have to go beyond that and focus on the way we want to play football.
on if Arsenal were in a crisis…
It depends what you call a crisis. If you call a crisis being slaughtered by everybody, we’re in a super crisis.
on finding out about his team…
In any bad thing, there is always a good thing. I don’t complain because, in our job, you need to be mentally strong and therefore it’s always a test when you’re in a position like we were in. I just wanted to say that in 16 years, we have lost one time against a team from a lower division. Our record in the last 16 years is still the best in any cup game compared to any other team in England. We were of course not happy with what happened, and very disillusioned. There’s only one answer to give – to play well [in the] next game.
on a nervous 10 minutes during the second half…
Yes, you’re right. We were under a lot of tension before the game. We thought subconsciously it was done at 4-0 and at 4-2, I saw your headlines coming! Fortunately we scored the fifth goal.
on what the result does for the team…
Our run in the Premier League is not as bad recently because we had beaten Tottenham, we had gone to Villa and Everton – two difficult places to go. After, we had one bad game, against Swansea. Then we beat West Brom, came here and won. We’ve only lost one of the last six games. But once you start in the middle, every [time you don’t] win, it becomes highlighted. The run in the last six games in the Premier League is not fantastic, but not disastrous either.
