Wenger On Stoke Victory

Manager Arsene Wenger believes we were good value for our three nil victory over Stoke City today.

Goals from Koscielny and a brace from Sanchez, left the gaffer with plenty of positives to talk about in his after game interview with the Official Site and he explained.

‘We moved well without the ball and moved the ball well, which is the basis of our game. Overall, we created chances, were mobile and the speed of our game created problems for Stoke. We took advantage of that.’

With Sanchez taking plenty of plaudits following the performance again, he came in for specific praise from the gaffer, especially given he’s able to shake it up on the pitch and provide us with different options during a game.

‘The better the team plays, the more he is involved in the game because we attacked a lot. We had a very offensive team and he’s confident. He’s another – like Giroud – and we can be direct with him, you can run at people a bit more, so there’s a good combination offensively.’

Wenger went on to say that especially at home ‘our pitch is perfect even in winter’ and it means we can move the ball with speed and that really suits our technical style, but especially Sanchez’s but he knew that keeping our focus and concentration would be key given Stoke’s style and threats and he was pleased with the clean sheet and again felt that we largely coped with them well and deserved it.

‘I must say that everybody played very well. The only negative is that we lost another experienced defender with a dislocated shoulder. That gives us a problem because we are already short of experienced players at the back.’

The gaffer admits that before we can put a timescale on Debuchy’s injury he will have to be seen by a specialist, but clearly he’s out for our next game and you would imagine it will be a good few weeks, and he also confirmed that Kieran Gibbs remains out with his ‘inflamed ankle’.

Callum Chambers missed out owing to an illness and it was a last minute decision to leave him out as he was with the squad.

He also said that Mesut Ozil is just lacking match fitness, but he fully expects him to be back in two-three weeks tops.

Referencing our last game against them, he says it’s always difficult to say you played well when you concede three but he felt going forward we always looked dangerous but paid for a very slow start in the game.

‘Today, from the first minute, we played at a good pace, put them on the back foot and that was the difference.’

He ended by talking about some of the challenges in the match, and whilst saying he would need to see some of them again, he praised Peter Crouch as he felt he ‘used his arms quite well’ and he was adamant it wasn’t a dirty game, but explained why he felt that.

‘We kept it clean because we moved very well and we didn’t give them any opportunity – we moved the ball so quickly that we didn’t give them an opportunity to get in too many physical challenges.’

Says it all doesn’t it.