“With Theo and Van Persie, that will be sorted out at the end of the season. Theo is playing very well. He has improved his technical level a lot, his links with other players and his calmness in front of goal. He is developing very well.”
“It is something I will look to sort out very early. Yes, I am confident they will sign. To say that I am always confident, yes I am. We want to keep our best players.”
“We can still win lots of trophies and we can do great things in the future. We have a bright future because this is a good club.”
“We are all still young, we have got some good players here, a good group. We have been through a lot of difficult times this season, lots of people have wavered in their belief of us.”
“They have said this and they have said that, but we have returned to form and now we are going to try to finish the season well.”
“The standout player for me this year has been Robin [Van Persie]. You can see his class with his finishing, how he leads the group, and with his experience.”
“He is a player who has grown in to the role of captain and is the sort of player you need during the hard times.”
“Champions League football is not guaranteed, but we can do it if we keep our performances at that level. We have gone through difficult times, we have learnt that nothing is guaranteed and that we have to keep humility and focus to finish the season in a strong and convincing way.”
“I didn’t expect (to be in 3. place) because it did not only depend on us. We needed our results and results in our favour from our opponents and in the last month it has turned our way so we have to make sure that we keep the momentum.”
“We look to be a team that is on the up so that is a positive. I felt it was a very dynamic, fluent performance in the first half with technical quality and it was a controlled one in the second half.”
“We controlled the game and managed not to concede a goal, our fatigue maybe set it because we had to give a lot at Everton on Wednesday night. Koscielny has tendinitis in his knee. I don’t know what position he woke up in, but he couldn’t walk properly. He tried in the warm up and couldn’t play. We called somebody up and straight away after the first run he said he couldn’t even move it was so bad.”
“Overall I’m very happy, very please, because we managed to score goals and not concede goals and we have consistency at the moment. I feel we have gained a lot our confidence in our play out from the back and that makes a massive difference, when you have the security to play out the ball it allows the team to be much more confident.”
“What people forget is when you play at home and you have the ambition we have, you need full-backs that go forward and we played for a long time without the centre-backs and full-backs, it kills your offensive drive and we went through the middle and relied on Van Persie.”
“We have more variation now in our build-up again, therefore we are more dangerous. Walcott scored a great goal, have to give him credit. I would like to give credit to the pass of Song. You will not see many defensive midfielders make as many assists as him, if you look at Song this season, you will see that his numbers are top in Europe.”
“Quantity-wise we will not do a lot. Quality-wise certainly, and we will take a gamble if we find top, top quality of course. The number of the squad is 25. We have many players out on loan and we have not had Jack Wilshere or Abou Diaby for the whole season.”
“These players will be back and that means number and quality wise we are strong because we are now in the position we are in without these players. Last year was terrible for us because we finished on the 31st August at 11.55pm and we do not want to repeat that.”
On Podolski’s rumours: “Nothing is done. No, he has not had a medical. I don’t master the timing because that does not just rely on us. It could happen soon, it could happen later, I don’t know. It is always a concern. The speed in which you do things is important, but at the end of the day it is always the player who makes the decision. It is about how much they want to join you.”
On Premiership position: “Third is better than fourth, but if you have no choice, you take fourth and the opportunity. Let’s see how it goes now. I believe Newcastle are still in the fight, as are Tottenham and Chelsea. Liverpool are maybe too far off, but you never know.”
“I am happy about my first season but I know I can do better. I have scored and given assists but I also created a few chances that I missed. If I had been more efficient, it would have been even better.”
“I need to work hard at training to become more clinical in front of goal. I’m not worried though. People say that the second season is always better for a foreign player but I don’t think it will be much easier. Every game is tough for me because the level of competition is so high in the Premier League, and every time you have to be at your best.”