After Arsenal’s 3-0 win over Ostersund, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Danny Welbeck faced the BT Sport cameras.
Here’s what they had to say…
On the result…
DW: “The pitch was a bit hard, we knew it was going to be a bit difficult. With the players that they’ve got they like to keep the ball and get round the back. We had to keep our cool and make sure we were patient with the ball ourselves. I felt sometimes we could have maybe played it forward a bit quicker to catch them out, but it was a professional performance from us.
On being gifted a good start…
HM: I think it was their first game in a while. They’ve got a very good team, they try to play, they tried to show off their ability, their skills. We’ve scored two goals at the beginning and it’s made things easier.
On winning the Europa League for a second successive season…
HM: Yeah, why not? We have to keep fighting, we have to win in every game and then we’ll see where we are.
On having a chance to play in the Europa League…
DW: Obviously the 3G pitch out there [was hard] and I’ve had some injuries in the past, but I made sure I’ve done my rehab pretty well. You hear little stories about playing on 3G pitches after injuries. I felt fine, the pitch was just a bit hard. I’m just looking forward to getting more minutes under my belt.
On resting players next week…
HM: I don’t think so. We need to focus on every game, it doesn’t matter if we’ve got a good result or not. We need to win every game to get more confidence and to have better success. It doesn’t matter if we have the [League] cup final after the second leg we have to play with the same team and to win at home.
Who is this Danny Welbeck fella masquerading as a footballer?!
C’mon, Danny is decent. We all know his strengths and we all know his weaknesses. He ain’t gunna change, we’ve just got to make the most out of him. Hint: Putting him on out wide with 15 mins to go in a game we are playing shite in doesn’t work.
To be fair to him he looks pretty rusty / low on confidence at the moment
So is putting him central in a game we need goals but hey, he’s ours and as long as he’s here we have to turn a blind eye and support him.
He is a striker.and scoring goals isn’t his strength.So “Decent” is not the term for him.You dont get unlimited chances in prof football,and he will miss 9 out of 10 presented to him.we ditched theo for much less.
I like Danny, I know he’s not hugely prolific in front of goal, but he makes up for that by being a fairly versatile player. You can put him anywhere across the front 3 and he does a job. I’d also like to point out that he always tends to show up in big games. He has scored some big goals for us in big games. He has bottle. Just thinking off the top of my head here, he was huge in that City game at Wembley in the FA Cup for us. He loves scoring against United as well,… Read more »
The guy is an enigma. He scored quite a few at Utd (and whatever you think of the cunts, that says something). He’s been good for england, and has got a few important goals for us. Yet, more than 50% of the time, he looks completely shit, with extreme clumming, and the technical ability of a juvenile goat. What gives?
I think he hasn’t spent enough time playing for The Arsenal to figure out what his role is a striker. Some strikers (Giroud) are great as hold up play guys and set piece players, some are are good as 6 yard box poachers (nacho who is supposed to be a left back but we love him – aube has done this once so far), others like to crack one outside the penalty box. I think Arsene wants the pretty technical goal, why we want one even if its sloppy. I have never questioned Danny’s desire. Though I have questioned his… Read more »
Yeah we won three nil so let’s all wade in on our striker…
I’m up for giving Eddie a start for the next game.
We already know what we get with Welbeck.
We know what we’ll get every time he starts after a lengthy break from injury/sidelines. Let’s not write him off yet. The pace and intelligence means he could be very good as he works in to his prime. He may never develop either, but he needs to take these Europa games as his chance to do this. We shall see.
Feel free, but my judgement isn’t just based in his time at Arsenal either.
Honestly I kinda prefer this competition, we actually have a chance of winning it. I’m getting bored of being slaughtered by Barca and Bayern in the last 16.
Plus our players don’t get overplayed and get injured (not that this has helped us so far).
Who knows, if we’d been in the CL this season maybe our luck would have changed and we’d have got Porto in this round?
We got lucky once and then got knocked out by Monaco.
I couldn’t believe that game. One of Wengers biggest balls ups. Probably on par with that balls up of a season when Leicester won he league. We took Monaco so lightly, didn’t see them as a genuine threat, and they knocked us out. I remember the away day well. It was on St Paddy’s Day, and we were pounding pints of Guinness in this little Irish bar we found for like 14 Euro a go, just watching super car after super car go by.. crazy place Monaco. All of us were convinced we were going to do it. Coming back… Read more »
It was a poor showing by pretty much the whole team but It was also one of HFBs worst games ever, where he missed a hat full of chances. We should have won on his chances alone… So I’m not sure if it was purely down to the manager…
Wenger must be the most patient coach you’ll ever find..I would’ve hooked Danny off in the first half and brought on Nketiah..
I don’t believe in slating our players but Danny was really poor tonight…can you imagine if Danny is all we have and we are playing athletico or dortmund?..
Lets hope laca recovers fast or we won’t get any where near the final..
How he got to the 80th minute i don’t know…
1st game back after some time out and he’s bound to be rusty (I’m not suggesting he’ll ever be a world beater but we know he can be better than this).
Do we? I don’t believe so. But then again, he could pull a good surprise.
Yes we do. He may not be the best scorer (may not… 😀 ) but he usually isn’t anywhere near as poor as he was last night.
U would run his career if u we’re manager
I hope he can regain some form. I thought he was actually quite decent before the injury – fought hard, pressed hard, has physique, team player. He may not score a lot, but can still contribute to a team that is frankly struggling a lot on all these fronts.
Bit of a problem having a striker that can’t score a lot.
Never understood why he was preferred constantly over Lucas Perez.
I like what I’m reading from Mkhi there. I agree, more and more commanding performances are needed with a strong team to build up some confidence and set this club up in a more winning mood.
I hope we go with a moderately strong team into the next match and get us all pumped up a bit instead of underpowering the squad and coming away with a listless, nervous performance.
Not by you.
It was OK. This is Ostersund. We did the business first 24minutes but they had a go at us thereafter. We will need to be far better to get past some bigger scalps ahead. And no, Elneny and AMN are not the answer to our midfield problems. Still very open. They look OK against this level of opposition but against better opponents, we will be found out. That said, good to have them gain some vital minutes there as midfield looks thread bare. Iwobi and Bellerin I thought had excellent game going forward. Bellerin’s only fault was the rash challenge… Read more »