Wenger Post Match Reaction: ‘We needed to be patient today’

Here are some of Arsene Wenger’s comments after today’s 1-0 win over QPR:

on the performance…
I am very happy with the result because we lost two big games in our head, and the confidence was a bit jaded. We were serious, we moved the ball quite well and we needed to be patient today. It is a QPR team with quality, I don’t think they will stay at the bottom [of the league]. It was important not to make a mistake, and wait for our chance and take it. We were a bit lucky that they lost a player, because it made it easier for us in the last 20 miniutes. But overall we played a serious game against a good team.

on Wilshere’s comeback…
You could see technically he is there, and he gave everything, and what he is missing he will get through competition. He still misses a bit of the pace of the game, the rhythm of the game, but overall what he did was class.

on choosing to include Wilshere…
I made the decision without telling him because when you have not played for such a long time it is not always easy to deal with that and there is a high level of expectation when he goes on the pitch. I also felt the confidence of the team was a bit jaded and sometimes players with experience and quality give a bit of a lift as well.

on when he told him he was playing…
I told him he was playing at 10.30am today. Sometimes I think it is better when you don’t have much time to think about it when you have been out for a long time.

on whether he can play regularly now…
I don’t know – we have to see how he responds. After such a long time out, it goes a bit up and down. What is good is that he got kicked today and had no problem. The rest will come with the games. Now, after a game like that, I will certainly not play him on Tuesday [against Reading in the Capital one Cup]. Will I play him next week? I don’t know.

on whether QPR targeted him…
I wouldn’t say that. QPR knew they had to be completely committed to stop us from playing, they did that well. In midfield they have good players – Diakite and Granero are good footballers. I don’t think they especially wanted to kick him.

on Granero’s challenge on Wilshere…
Yes, [I was worried]. After 17 months, you hope he is not back to what happened before. The referee was in a good position, I thought it was a very hard tackle but he decided not to give him a yellow card. Afterwards he gave a red to Mbia, I think he deserved it. But overall he had a good game.

on QPR’s late chances…
I don’t think it is tactical, it was psychological. You could see that as soon as we scored we just wanted to protect the result and we were 11 against 10. If the team is full of confidence maybe we give a chance away, but we would continue to flow forward. But here we just wanted to protect the result – it shows you how quickly the confidence goes from the team.

on Cazorla’s late miss…
No player misses a chance like that on purpose. When you know Santi, he still cannot understand how he did it. But he did.

on Gervinho’s injury…
It is an ankle problem, we don’t know how bad it is.

on Sagna’s comeback…
He did well. He is ready physically, he was not out as long as Jack and he has no problem.