Arsene Wenger On Manchester United’s 3-3 draw with Basel at Old Trafford.
“Manchester United‘s draw against Basel surprised me enormously. That night I watched Bayern Munich versus Manchester City and was switching between results. It was 2-0 for Manchester United, then next time I looked it was 3-2 to Basel, which was extremely surprising”.
“There are no easy games for English clubs in the Champions League. The level is quite balanced in Europe now. The easy domination of Premier League clubs, even in the group stage, is over”.
“United have trouble because every year they are in the final, the semi-finals or the quarter-finals. They have problems being focused on the group stage because they are so used to going further than that. From time to time, you have some disappointments as they had against Basel“.
“I have to say Swiss football is in a very good state. They are always in the final stages of youth tournaments, and when you see their clubs they are all playing good football. From Zurich to Basel, I always see them playing very well.”
On Kaka’s brilliant performance for Real Madrid against Ajax.
“We have to confess that everyone said Kaka‘s time was over! It is like that nowadays; you are always judged on recent performances”.
“When somebody is injured for as long as he was, it is extremely difficult to get back to your highest level if you are not given enough time”.
“Last year I thought he had some encouraging performances at the end of the season – today I think he is really good”.
“Although he is not playing like he did at Milan, he is showing some good signs and is in shape. The final step for him is to play regularly”.
“The problem he has is that he is in a team where Mesut Ozil is hyper-strong and young, so it will be difficult to win a permanent place in the team”.
On Mario Gomez, who scored both goals for Bayern Munich against Manchester City.
“He is a difficult case for a manager because he is not really involved in the build-up – but when the ball comes into the area he becomes a lion. In a technically-skilled team that is often in the final third – as we saw against Manchester City – he becomes an essential player because he turns everything the other players create into gold. He fits well into Bayern‘s style of player – they have always had those kinds of players. He does not always impress everyone when he plays, but when we look at his stats it is impressive. You have to take your hat off to it – I think he has scored 49 goals in 51 games. Only Messi can get near to that performance”.
On Valencia goalkeeper Diego Alves’s performance against Chelsea.
“I didn’t know who he was, but the advantage for him is that today, when a player has an outstanding performance he is quickly in the limelight. A few years ago, you would have to play well for five years before people talked about you. However, the disadvantage is that we sometimes make players superstars too quickly and then they have too much pressure on them. Some players cannot live with that“.
