Arsenal did the job at Ostersund tonight although they were hardly impressive with Danny Welbeck as the main striker, but Arsene Wenger thinks that his team took the tie seriously and simply did what was needed. The Swedish side have only played friendly games since the League finished in December, and with temperatures not conducive to amazing football the Gunners just tried to say solid and take any chances they were given.
All the goals could easily be said to have come from mistakes from the Ostersund keeper Keita, but as they say, you can only beat what is put in front of you, and Wenger couldn’t be upset with a 3-0 win in freezing weather and on a very hard plastic pitch. When asked if he was happy with the performance of his makeshift side, Wenger said: “Yes, we did the job needed.
“We started well and controlled the game against a good side.
“They beat Hertha Berlin here, 2-2 against Athletic Bilbao, so a quality team.
“But once we scored the first goal we were in control.
“Overall we played a serious game, so job done. They looked very nervous and we took advantage of it.
When we were comfortably ahead, Wenger brought on Nketiah and Reiss Nelson for the last half an hour, and Wenger was pleased to give his youngsters some more experience in the hotbed atmosphere of the Jamkraft Arena in -10 degrees (lol!). “I think the young players in the team played well in group stages, so they are kept in squad and continue to try and give them minutes when I can.”
So with such a good lead and the second leg just three days before the League Cup Final against Man City, Wenger was obviously asked if would be resting most of his stars for the second leg next Thursday, and he replied: “We’ll see.
“Maybe, but we want to win the game, it is important that we put out a team that can do that.”
I think we may be able to manage that if we put out our youth team. After that performance they would probably do even better as that is about the level of our opponents….
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