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'The whole team is firing on confidence'

Shkodran Mustafi in Champions League action
Shkodran Mustafi in Champions League action

Shkodran Mustafi and Theo Walcott both played key roles as Arsenal beat Ludogorets 6-0 in the Champions League on Wednesday night.

They spoke to the media afterwards, and this is what they had to say:

on how much they enjoyed the game...
SM - Well, six-nil but I think it was a tough game. I think they played well, I was surprised a bit because they played really well out of the back. They had a lot of confidence, you have to deal with that first and then obviously when you get the chances, you need to score and that's what we did today. I think in the last third and the final third we were very concentrated and we nearly scored a lot of the chances that we had, that was the thing that gave us the three points in the end.

on scoring again...
TW - Obviously the goals are fantastic but we always say we want to keep a clean sheet as a team. That's always our first goal and we managed to do that. We know how well we are going forward, how good we are and it's just sorting ourselves at the back and we've managed to do that this season especially. And the performances are coming. They started the game very strongly, technically they've got a lot of very good players and you may say it was quite easy, but no. Like Musti said, it was far from easy. So yeah, we can be proud of that and look forward to the weekend now.

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on whether the boss told them to look for more goals at half-time...
TW - We always want to take our chances. Today we managed to take pretty much all of them, and we need to make sure we start off second half very strongly. Everyone was focused, ruthless and it's a great result going into the weekend. The whole team is firing on confidence at this moment in time.

on how good this squad is...
SM - I think if you want to fight for big competitions like the Champions League or the Premier League, you need more than 11 players and that's what we keep saying every day and every training. And everyone knows it. We need all of the people. Not only the players, we need the staff, we need the medical staff, we need the coaches, we need everything. In the end it's all about details and that's what makes you win games and I think that the players who came in showed that they are part of the team and as soon as they come in, they give everything.

on how important it is to win the group to avoid a last 16 elimination...
TW - The past is the past, we need to obviously focus on now. We can't be looking too far ahead at this moment in time, as a squad we'll be concentrating now on recovery and then on Saturday - Middlesbrough. When we cross that bridge, hopefully we'll come to it, it's going to be interesting. We've still got a lot to do. We've still got a few games left, away games and tough away games as well, but who knows. We would obviously like to be in that strong position of finishing top, but you know, we need to keep performing to reach that goal.

on how important this could be in finishing above PSG...
SM - Yeah, I think it's not about looking too far ahead. I think it's about looking game to game. Today was a game which was really important for us, like all the other games. If you want to keep going in competitions like that, you have to try and win every game and today I think was especially important to keep going the good run that we had in the last games in the Champions League and the Premier League as well, because in three days' time is the next game and we want to take the three points out of this game as well.

on how hard it is to keep up the team's current form...
SM - That's what makes the difference between great teams, it's not about having all the one month, two month performances and then go down. It is a marathon and we have to fight until the end and if you are there, the most difficult thing is to stay up there. We have to try, we have to focus on the details, be concentrated, we need all the team, we need all the players and in the end, hopefully we will be successful.

 

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