Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger arrived fifteen minutes early for his news conference today ahead of the Gunners trip to St James Park where they will play Newcastle United on Saturday, and got right down to business discussing the clubs injured players saying that Jack Wilshere was still a few weeks away from being back in the squad along with Mathieu Debuchy and Mikel Arteta, but that Tomas Rosicky could be available for the weekend.
When asked about the Monaco game the Gunners boss said: “We are on a good run and we won the game.
“We are frustrated and disappointed we are out but it was not down to our performance on Tuesday night. It was down to our overall performance.
“We were a bit unlucky as well because if you look at the number of shots on target that Monaco had over the two games we were more efficient.”
He then moved on to talk about Saturday’s fixture saying: “We have good memories at Newcastle but they are always tight, difficult games.
“They are in a position where they are not under threat to go down but they are always a motivated crowd and they always play well against us.”
When asked if he thought Arsenal had any chance of catching Chelsea Wenger replied: “At the moment we are too far away from Chelsea, but we have the opportunity every week to get closer and for that we need positive results from us and negative results from Chelsea.”
And What about Liverpool?
“They are in the hunt yes. We are on the neck of Man City but as well behind us we have Man United and Liverpool.
“It’s very tight.
“Tottenham are not out of it and Southampton are not out of it.”
When asked about players targeting referee’s an obvious reference to the way Chelsea players gathered around the Ref prior to Zlatan Ibrahimovic getting sent off the Frenchman said:
“We have all to support the referees and make their job as easy as possible.
“It is difficult enough for the referees without them being criticised. I include myself in that.
“I don’t think we are helping much doing that.”
When asked about the team he would be putting out this weekend and if there would be any rotation Wenger replied: “I believe West Ham was a very physical game.
“Some of our players paid for it physically against Monaco.”
“We are a better team than four months ago. We have won 13 of our last 15 games.
“That is a sign of our improvement.”
