“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.”