Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger says he was satisfied with Arsenal’s performance after the 5-1 loss to Liverpool, and feels that the club are still in a strong position despite the stalemate with Manchester United at the Emirates.
Last night’s match failed to live up to all the talk going into it and the 0-0 result now leaves Chelsea top of the Premiership by just a point.
If it had not been for a fantastic save by Wojciech Szczęsny late on in the match where he pushed a Robin van Persie header onto the crossbar the visitors could have easily gone home with all three points.
When speaking to Sky Sports after the match the Arsenal manager said: “It was important not to lose, but it was also important to win. I felt we were nervous.
“Our team was highly focused not to concede, and that maybe restricted our game going forward a little bit because we were certainly hit by the five goals we conceded on Saturday, and you could feel that here.”
Arsenal must now face Liverpool again on Sunday in the FA Cup and then host Bayern Munich in the first leg of their Champions League knockout stage match a few days later.
Wenger said: “(It was) first (about) not losing tonight, then (we can) come back to our normal level offensively.
“We have come out of two difficult games and are still in a strong position, that is the only positive.”
Man of the match Szczęsny had good things to say about the mentality of the players adding that they had put the loss to Liverpool behind them.
“We’ve recovered from conceding five goals, that needed mental strength. But it’s time to push on now,” Szczęsny said.
“We tried our best, defended well for 90 minutes, but today we didn’t take our chances.
“The clean sheet is a positive but we’re disappointed that we didn’t win the game.”
When asked about the title run in the Pole said:
“It’s going to be tight; a lot of teams are close at the top. But we’re confident. We’ve dropped points in two games now but we’ll be confident going into the next 12-13 games of the season.”
