On whether he made any tactical changes at half-time…
No, like I said, I think the way we pressed their two centre-backs and their No.6 was better in the second half than in the first half. That’s why we could regain ball possession faster in the second half than in the first half. They couldn’t come as far around our box than as in the first half, but maybe the main thing was we had the ball for long spells and then when they kicked it away we could win it back and start playing again. But credit to Arsenal as well, the way they defended their box – I think we had five, six or seven shots, mainly from Dominik Szoboszlai and he has a good shot, I can tell you. And one shot I thought might have gone in but then of course Gabriel [Magalhaes] blocked it with his body forward and his legs. They are good in so many things, including box defending, that it is so difficult to get a result against them, but we managed to do so.
On what he can take to build on from a ‘good performance’…
I am a bit surprised that people think this is a good performance because when we have 60 or 70 per cent ball possession against other teams people find it boring and now it is a good performance. But again we hardly created a chance and now we say, ‘What a performance.’ This is who were are – we can dominate possession, we know how to do build-up, but we struggle, obviously, in a few things. Set-pieces are one of them, dominating moments when we are in the final third, to find the right pass and the right execution, that is something that is still not at the level some other teams are and that’s why we are working every single day.
But yes, we did really well in ball possession, but for me it wasn’t that much different than playing Leeds at home or Fulham away, where we dominated ball possession as well. But then people are annoyed that these teams are not of the magnitude of Arsenal [so] it is not good enough, which I completely agree on, by the way, because I want to see us creating more chances as well.
