It became pretty comprehensive because I feel on the whole we had a very strong first half. That certainly affected West Ham’s morale and in the second half it looked as if it were a bit more flat. West Ham in the second half didn’t put us under pressure, didn’t really get out of their own half, and we always looked like we were closer to scoring the third goal than to conceding one. And from then on it became a comprehensive victory. But we had a good, mature performance today.
On West Ham being affected by uncertainty surrounding their manager…
I would say it was affected first by the quality of our performance. Psychologically, mentally in the second half, I don’t know, the players could answer that much better than I could. It’s very different for me. What is for sure, when there is all this speculation about the job, it can unsettle because your words maybe have less power and your environment is a bit unsettled. It doesn’t help, that is for sure.
On sympathy for Avram Grant’s situation…
I have big sympathy for Avram Grant. I don’t think it affects him at all, but you don’t know how much it affects your environment. Our job is difficult enough not to put some more on your back. It’s difficult enough without problems of that sort.
On a convincing win…
It was a convincing win. In fact we are on a very strong run in the Premier League because we beat Chelsea, won twice 3-0 away from home and a convincing 0-0 against Man City at home. So overall we are on a strong run. I have said many times that the Premier League will be exciting and interesting until the end.
On Van Persie’s two-goal performance…
We have many offensive players and he gets them in well because he keeps the ball and of course you can see now that because he has a few games he’s much sharper physically, and that is very interesting.
On building momentum in the title race…
I think it’s in our hands. In the fact that we play all of the big teams at home and that we have a strong run at home now. We have played many away games, so now we’ll see that it is down to us. Tomorrow we have many big games, but we have done the job today. So we can watch them in a relaxed way a little bit. But we are very interested in one because it is a big test for Tottenham and Man United tomorrow.
On the team’s motivation after a poor performance at Ipswich…
I don’t know because it is difficult to compare the competitions. Cup is Cup and you’ve seen that sometimes that teams do well in the championship but not so well in the Cup. Did we underestimate a little bit the difficulty? I don’t know, but certainly you could come to that conclusion if you saw the team today.
Source: Arsenal.com on 15 Jan 11
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