Arsenal have now won their third game in a row, scoring 8 goals in the process, but as usual we made it hard for ourselves by sitting back and letting AC Milan get the first goal to give them a bit of hope. But Arsene Wenger was very pleased with the response from his side to take control again. “It was a difficult game for two reasons.” he said. “One is that we played against a good side who are unbeaten in Italy for a long, long time and you could see why.
“Secondly, subconsciously we were in a protective mode a little bit with the handbrake from the start on. Instead of turning the game forward, we played backwards. That’s always the best way to invite your opponent to be dangerous. After that, when we are 1-0 down, you could see straightaway the response was in the team. As soon as we pushed forward, we looked dangerous and I believe overall, we won the two games and finished the games in a convincing way.
“It was a good game against a solid team and we needed to be resilient and disciplined. But we made a big part and the best part of the job in the first game. It’s always difficult to finish the job. Especially when you have a good away result, because you are a little bit in-between. That’s always difficult.”
the the Boss was asked if this showed that Arsenal had regained their confidence and style back after our awful losing run. He replied: “As I told you many times, we had a nightmare week and to recover from that you need to be mentally strong, you need to be solid. The team needs to show, together, a response. That’s what we did. Overall, I think many people didn’t expect us to respond like we did. That shows that the team is healthy, has a good basis and we have seen that for many teams, it is difficult to win at home when you have done it away from home.”
So now we are in the last eight, is this good for the club going forward? “Certainly, first for the climate around the team, it was a vital result for us tonight. Apart from that, we have targets as well now to finish as close as possible to the top four. And why not benefit from a miracle? But as well, focus on the quarter-final now.”
At least Wenger didn’t say our priority was still to try and make the Top Four for a change. It is obvious to us all now that the Europa League MUST be the main target, but to continue winning in the League would be very nice too!
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