Arsene Wenger has admitted his team had a bit of luck yesterday in the FA Cup semi-final, but says the club’s consistency in the competition as they look for a record 12th win also played a part.
The winning goal from Alexis Sanchez came via a terrible mistake from Adam Federici, but the Reading goalkeeper had kept his side in the game with a number of excellent saves.
Arsenal were not at their best, not by a long way, but at this stage of the competition the result far outweighs the performance and the Arsenal manager was delighted to make it back to Wembley on May 30th for a final against either Liverpool or Aston Villa.
“It was a difficult game against a very resilient, well-organised, physically very strong side, said Wenger.
“They were a committed Reading team who were comparable to what we faced last year against Wigan Athletic. We have improved a bit because we needed the penalties last year but it meant we got through.
“In the end we were a bit lucky because their goalkeeper made the mistake and I can understand that. He kept them in the game as well for long periods.”
As for why his team failed to reach the heights of previous weeks, he continued, “What was missing was a bit of speed in the combinations in the final third and maybe sharpness. The spirit and the concentration was there. We lacked a bit of sharpness to create more clear-cut chances maybe.”
And while delighted to be through, his focus has already turned to the next game against Chelsea in the Premier League.
“The records show that we are consistent and that is most difficult. I believe that we now need to focus on our next game.
“We come back here in the final, we have time to prepare and overall the final is a 50/50. If we can beat that record we will be very happy.
“The final is 50/50 so let’s hope we have all our players available to come back in a good shape.”
the result is all that counts.
Lots of players to come back into the side for the final. Fullbacks, keeper and Giroud.
Lets hope we beat Chelsea. I reckon we have a good chance at last.
We can finish strongly but its inconceivable that we will overtake Chelsea. Lets aim to finish as strongly as we can and open next season as a credible contender.
Second place, 4 points off 1st. I’d take that. It’s more than we could hope for, considering how fucked we were at the start of the season.
I just want a win next week, that’s it. I have no expectations that we will win the league.
I want Mourinho to shut up and to have a great boost for next season.
Its hard to dispute Arsene but let me try. We dominated every aspect of the game save for fouls committed. Possession by over 70%
– Shots at goal 23 to 12
– Their keeper made not less than 3 fantastic saves.
– Heck, we even had two attempts ricochet off their post.
If we count them unlucky, we were equally unlucky because their unlucky goal squirmed over the line just like the only goal we conceded.
Pogrebnyak though… 🙂
Spot on mate. At the end of the game the pundits starting banging on about offside decisions that went against them. One was very borderline and the other Mackie was on but heading towards the corner flag. Giroud’s wrongly given offside that would have seen have seen him clean through straight at goal was of course overlooked. It’s better to be plucky and “brave” than actually win football games in the eyes of some. Probably why England never do anything at big competitions.
It’s politically correct for AW to say ‘we woz lucky’. If he’d said we outplayed them etc then the press would jump on him ‘gloating’ ‘ego’ etc etc.
Similarly he can’t mention the poor standard of the officials because the press would ignore the 50 opposition fouls and pick on one where Coq could possibly have got a yellow if the refs had seen it in slow motion.
Clearly a mistake to start Debuchy and Gibbs. Some wanted a midfield of Flamini Rosicky and Jack. It’s the semi final of the FA cup ffs. This ain’t play station.
Debuchy wasn’t as bad as Gibbs. I’ve never seen Gibbs play well. Ever. He’s got pace and stamina but he simply cant read big games.
You can’t have seen many games then. He has had a season (plus) where he hasn’t been great (I suspect he’s trying to play around an ankle injury). Before that (when he’s had a run) he’s been excellent in quite a few games.
I like brackets (parentheses).
Hindsight is a wonderful thing but yes it turned out to be a bigger mistake given that Ramsey wondered infield and Debuchy unable to provide width in the same way as bellerin. It’s going to be interesting to see who plays at RB and LB against Chelsea and in future games.
Fuck Chelsea.
Arguably the most meaningful two words I’ve read in a long time. We need a win against the blues. Its going to be a massive confidence boost for everyone. Manager included. We need to see a win against Chelsea.
What we’ve done in the past couple of months gave been brilliant. But nothing as important as beating a championship winning Chelsea squad. Oh yeah. And fuck Chelsea.
John Terry is a cunt.
Calling him one is glorifying him. I love cunts
Glad to see that someone else recognises that Reading also scored a lucky goal!
At least we’re playing at our second home in the final.
Do you think Wenger will stick with Szczesny in goal for the final like last year with Fabianski, or let Ospina play?
Martinez.
He surely will stick with Szczesny as he went with Fabianski last year in the final unless there is an injury to deal with (maybe he’ll put Szczesny through some conditioning drills with the intention to pull his hammy so he can let Ospina play).
it is hard to say….fabianski was good during our fa cup run last year, seamen-esque. But who knows that he would revert to fabianski-esque in the final.
Oh yeah, a win at the Bridge next week will make me feel even happier than the 1st time having sex.
Just saying…
You sure about that? You sure?!
That could be fraudian!! You would be on your own if you were at the bridge next week!! Was you on your own the first time you had sex!!!
Fraudian would mean that the feeling isn’t real 🙂 or maybe that was a Freudian slip. Oh and John Terry is still a cunt
sigismund fraud, you are…
Without a shadow of doubt – if we started the season like we’re ending it wed be miles ahead of all the teams in the league. We’ve done something this season that we haven’t managed to do for almost a decade – grinding results out of nothing. I’d take a dirty win over Chelsea any day. But a nice win over them the arsenal way would be even better. And by the way debuchy’s crosses are pretty darn good. And Gibbs really sucked. Sorry. But he doesn’t have what it takes to make it on the first team with this… Read more »
Yes, Gibbs & also Szcz’ confident levels looked kinda low in this game, both are not at their best, which is kinda weird cos I thought they would embrace the playing opportunity to remind the manager how good they really are. Maybe it’s the nerve. Dunno.
Debuchy on the other hand, even tho just got back from a long injury, still manage to play a solid game.
So the back four against Chelsea would be Debuchy, Gabriel, Kos & Monreal surely? That would be solid, me thinks.
I didn’t think Szcz would show us his southampton form so soon. i had given him atleast 6 to 7 games between the stick.
Oooh Szcz!
We got away with it yesterday,resting the full backs and our main striker was a gamble but it paid off in the end and we’ll have a fresh team for next week. We will play our best team against Chelsea no doubt and finally lay to rest the Mourinho hoodoo.
I fucking hate those Chavs !!
How is playing Ozil, Santi, Kozzer etc for 120 mins and coq for 100 mins ‘a fresh team’?
Wanted to cut my ears off at some points yesterday during the BBC commentary, especially the winning goal.
They didn’t even note that Arsenal had scored or deserved to be ahead, they just mourned Federici as if he had just been shot.
Honestly Danny Murphy may be challenging Owen for PFA Shittest Pundit Of the Year.
Danny murphy’s a football pundit now? Shit. Now I’ve seen everything.
They’re hardly going to go berserk on the commentary, it would take someone pretty inhumane to not feel for Federeci at that moment.
Anyway we better be training all week on how to break through a formation of 10-0-0 without getting caught in the counter.
CHELSEA PFFFTTTttttttt JOHN TERRY IS STILL A RACIST CUNT
After hearing praises about Nacho’s defensive solidity from so many people, I thought Gibbs was very tentative in overlapping with Sanchez. Sideways and back, sideways and back….
For someone with the quickness of Gibbs he really looks to beat defenders on the dribble to the endline and as you said most of the balls that are played to him end up being passed right back to where they came from. Monreal seems much more assured on the ball and although he does not have the quickness of Gibbs seems to over more in the attack to me than Gibbs.
Monreal Is a good attacker and a good defender. His only problem is that he’s not as quick as Gibbs so he was sprinting back knackered and jumping into tackles rather than trying to see the attacker ‘out’.
Now he has Coq covering for him he can run (rather than sprint) and is calm enough to do the job properly. Gibbs is probably weaker as a pure defender but his speed (especially in transition) is a real strength. When Gibbs gets match fit then we’ll have 2 World Class LBs.
I dunno but it seems that their stamina are not that great…..
On a side note, I think the way for Jenkinson to make a comeback to this arsenal team is to work on his stamina and crossing, i.e. another gary neveille.
I’m embarrassed to say that my brother is a WHU fan, so although I haven’t seen him play there (other than MOTD), I get reports. He’s definitely playing much better now he’s getting consistent game time but he still has lapses where he ball watches and his positioning is still poor when he’s not directly involved (a bit like Gibbs has been this season)
Gibbs also wastes too many passes. at time he just kicks the ball in the air leaving Giroud to tussle in the air when a simple ground ball would have sufficed.
The spanish fullbacks are my no 1 choices right now. They are brilliant with their feet unlike the ball hoofing English lfullbacks.
Where is Rambling Pete when you need him??
You make your own luck.
It cuts both ways.
Better ‘nervy’ win in the semi finals than what happened to Liverpool.