Arsene Wenger says that despite the 2-0 win over Man City, he has regrets because the scoreline could have been even more convincing!
It might be the first time Arsenal have won away to a top four side since the moon landings, but Wenger was impressed with the overall team performance and felt his players could have made more of certain situations.
“We always looked dangerous when we won the ball,” he said, “but we had a good solidarity level and a good compactness, and the regret of the day is that we didn’t always take advantage of the situations we created in the final third.
“There was room to maybe score more goals. The confidence of the team is high and some players are in very good form.”
Asked whether the three points would see Arsenal turn a corner, Wenger said, “Time will tell. What is for sure is that it increases the level of belief and confidence.
“We have five months in front of us that are very important in the lifespan of the team and what you make of that will decide our season. Games like that can help you to do very well.”
There was a lot to be positive about, but we do need to see this more often. Perhaps there’s a psychological barrier broken today, which would be good for us too.
Wenger is right, I too have a regret. Although this was a fantastic result for the club and for all things Arsenal, it has made two of the most despicable men on the face of this earth very, very happy indeed. The very thought that somewhere in the world Jose Mourinho and Piers Morgan are simultaneously smiling, does make me somewhat ill
And JT! yuk!!!
Guess we just have to thrash them at home then to make Mourinho miserable again. Or even better, lets beat them with a dubious penalty in the 93rd minute while which will make Jose so mad that he literally blows into pieces.
what a site that would’ve been, getting a six past $hity at the eaty-sad.
Carl jenkinson does not approve of your banter
Please Arsene, retain this more pragmatic tactical approach. We have enough quality players to win games with moments of individual and collective genius, as long as we first make sure we stay in the games. There is no need to attempt to play every team off the park. Matches like this prove that and make me very happy!
Agree with Wenger! But just being purely greedy. Yesterday was perfect
Yea we could have won by more. That brings to fore the fallacy of possession stats. We had 35% overall possession but here we are feeling we could have got more. City had the rest but had no shot on target all game.
Watch this team go on a run now.
The win yesterday has made what is going to a tough week for me at work, easy.
If Wenger wants improve on yesterday’s result, things only look promising.
I know Carzola was MOTM and desrevedly so; but for me, I was more impressed by two boys. 1. Francis (Lazarus) Coquelin, for virtually coming back from the dead. His Arsenal career was in tatters three weeks ago. 2. Bellerin, for proving himself in such a big stage and making Milner look like a part-timer. Debuchy has more than his shoulder to contend with right now. This boy is the real deal. I now see why Arsene did not sign a younger full-back i(Serge Aurier)n the summer. When I saw the team sheet, these two guys were my worry esp.… Read more »
Respect when is due, and Arsene got his tactics right today, but we cant forget how inept their tactics were in the last couple years. But that doesnt matter now, we won, we played beautiful, coq, bellerin and cazorla were impressive, i just wish we could’ve played like this against top teams all this years tho
We played like this at the Alianz Arena and beat Bayern 2-0 three seasons ago. We also did it against Barca and it was working until that diabolical red card for RVP. So it is not particularly alien to us. What I think is that the personnel has to be right especially a ball handler (Carzola), speedy wingers who are also willing to track back (Alexis and Ox), a dedicated bank of 2 (Coquelin and Ramsey) in front of the back four and good outlets from the back (full-backs) for it to come off. We had all that in place… Read more »
Yeeeah. Flam should’ve given Hart the eyes then tapped home a pride killing front post finish.
Le coq has been a revelation not imposing like vieira or yaya toure but battler and a ball winner like makelele and he done well only thing is he’s out of contract at the end of season wenger needs to sort him a new one in jan
Coquelele.
That. 😀
That was meant as a thumbs up not thumb down. I fat fingered it. Your comment made me chuckle. Thanks!
hate when that happens
Hopefully he doesn’t do a Flamini and leave.
My missus had a baby boy on Saturday night. So he has never experienced an Arsenal loss in his entire life. Long may it continue.
Happy little Gooner….
Hope you called him Francis!
He is Hector…. and i’ve just realised that i managed to get an arsenal name in there by accident – Missus 98 poo poohed all my ideas – Arsene, Denis, Thierry, Santi 🙂
In your face love .. Hector Babylin
Oh and Chelsea, Spurs, Man u, Man City and Liverpool have all never won since Hector Babylin was born.. (Saturday Night)
Go on the Baby!
Awesome kid you begot there, keep it up!
Hector Babylin has to watch every Arsenal game from now on!!
This is the type of match that makes intent statements that anybody can be dealt with even in their own kitchen. Good one there arsene for remembering one of the tactics used in the days of the invicibles.#COYG
Regrets? I have none regarding this match. This was the best defensive performance I’ve seen from us in.. I honestly don’t know how long. Years, no doubt. City’s got some of the best attacking players in the world, yet we looked comfortable the entire match.
In my opinion, our best performance since Bayern away where we only went out due to away goals.
Depending on how other teams perform, if we win the next 6 games we can, mathematically, challenge for the title.
Just how good was cazorla?
He reminded me of a dancing leprechuan, some of his ball retention skills and ability to go past players was amazing, caught my 83 year old nan who was also watching the game (live at 1am here) clapping at santi’s showing.
Ps : other than le coq and ‘monstereal’, i also thought giroud did very well too, there were times when his first touch to bring high passes under control whilst under pressure from city’s oil lathered henchcunts was almost pires-esque.
Some of Giroud’s over-the-shoulder touches to bring the punts down were sublime.
Giroud was in fantastic form yesterday. While all the players put on a good show, our key men yesterday were Santi, Coquelin, Giroud, Bellerin, Monreal and Sanchez. Great job, guys.
Top.job from the qhole team yesterday. For all citwhs possesion they couldnt get past us. Defence from the back to the front was exceptional.i dont think we had a mediocre performance from anyone.
What a performance from the whole team. This was such a balanced side that it begs the question how could you change it to fit in the likes of Ozil, Wilshere, Gibbs, Debuchy, Szcezesny, Chambers. Flamini and Arteta certainly look way down the list now. For me the only debateable points are perhaps Walcott for Oxlade-Chamberlain, I thought The Ox was the only player yesterday that was not 100%. Walcott when match fit not only provides the penetration down the right, but has a much better scoring record, something Alex really needs to work on. Also I just slightly prefer… Read more »
The only thing that bugs me is that Jose likes the result too.
Yesterday proved that the Coq is legitimately good. After solid performances against mid-level teams, he really shined against arguably the best attack in the league, albeit one missing Yaya. His awareness and leadership were also fantastic, miles above Flamini who does the shouty part but has the concentration levels of a 10 year-old with ADD.
Coquelin has so impressed me that I don’t think we need a new DM until the summer. Come July though, flog Arteta and Flamini, bring someone in and keep the Coq I say.
Agreed. I know it won’t happen, but can you imagine Coquelin and Pogba playing between our defence and our front line? It would be awesome!
Arsenal played well, but let’s not forget that Yaya was not there. It shows the difference having a world class CDM in your team can make if you want to beat a really good team like The Arsenal. Without Toure, Man Chitty is quite beatable. Which is why he starts the vast majority of their games, he is a vastly important. Coquelin played very well, but you could never call him world class like Toure. No matter how good a player is, it’s a matter of physical presence. While we certainly have no need to splash the cash for a… Read more »
I think what’s more important than the quality of the player is the way we play as a team. We could have have a Matic/Pirlo/Mascherano/Toure hybrid and they’d still look rubbish if we played like we did against Chelsea last season. I’m not saying we shouldn’t buy one, but it’s not the be all and end all
I guess what Wenger is saying is that we left room for Pellegrini to say/we won by a ‘dubious’ penalty and a set piece.
I like how the media keeps saying we have a Plan B.
What Plan B?
We are still 4-1-4-1.
We do not have a plan B. We have a Plan A which we executed to perfection.
Well it does help when the 1 between the two 4’s is a specialist defensive midfielder, and just think some people on here said we didn’t need to play one, they must be feeling really stupid now!
No doubt the media will characterise the win as City playing below par.
Seems common these days that every bogey team we meet likes to play below par against us.
Maybe they need a couple more big physically imposing DM types.
Just glad for the win. Had Ramsey and Alexis been a little better with their touches around and in the box, we could have had a couple more. But, most games you could say that. The best part was watching a team that for the day figured out how to stop a world class attack and were resolute in their team tactics.