Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger:
“We were in a position where we could take advantage of our home game and we did it. We had two [different] halves, the first one was fluent, we did well going forward. In the second half we looked jaded physically and lost our game a bit. In the end we lost our technical quality but we have shown again another aspect as well, that we can dig deep and fight when we are a bit under pressure. In the end, when the third goal went in, we just kept the result. It’s been a positive, very good week for us because we won in Marseille, we won in Sunderland, we won today. Overall it was a very positive week”.
“When you play against Stoke you don’t expect to score three goals from set-pieces and that is basically the biggest surprise to me today. It shows as well how important the delivery is. He [Ozil] is a player, when you look at his numbers, the assists are not a coincidence, it’s just the reality of his game. I believe that once he is completely integrated we’ll see even more of him but he has shown today that he is a great player”.
Stoke boss Mark Hughes:
“We are disappointed with the manner of the goals, we lost three goals to set plays and that’s not something we usually do. And I don’t think there are many occasions where they score from free-kicks or from balls into the box.
“We showed good courage to get on level terms, but their second goal was disappointing. In the second half we looked like we were the more likely to score and when they got a third it took the wind out of our sails.”
