【2007/08賽季英格蘭足球超級聯賽】 米德爾斯堡2：1阿森納 蒼天啊！如此慘敗怎樣煲雞

Dear Supporter,

We lost the game on Sunday because we deserved to lose it.

Middlesbrough were sharper in the fight. They were a team who lacked confidence but we missed something at the start of the game because we gave them too much room and that caused the penalty.

After they scored the penalty you could see it would be more difficult if we were not level at half-time because then we would have to come out more and more. They were good at taking the space when they won the ball back and you could see we had problems to win the one-on-ones.

We gave them the chances to get their counter-attacking game going and that is something they are very good on. They are very sharp and mobile.

It is a shame because we gave absolutely everything to come back but we lacked creativity, we lacked sharpness in our passing and therefore were not dangerous enough to come back into the game.

We were a little bit jaded physically. It was our fourth away trip on the trot and it was difficult for us to make a game of it.

The fixture schedule has been difficult because we played at Sevilla, Aston Villa, Newcastle and now Middlesbrough. That is four on the bounce. It is really tough but you can't do anything about it. We had to take the Newcastle game in midweek, we had no choice.

But Middlesbrough deserve credit. They have a good team. If you look at the names on the team-sheet you cannot say that is a team who should go down.

The problem for Middlesbrough is not the quality of their players. It is whether they are capable of producing that performance when they go 1-0 down. Quality-wise it is not a team that should go down.

Thanks for your support.



Arsène Wenger