'Once again we have shown great character'
“Yes, I was. I felt that Wigan had a very strong and especially committed first half where they were well organised and the 50:50s were all for them. They played very strongly and I think that slowly our technique took over and we looked dangerous every time we had the ball. The fatigue crept in a little bit for Wigan and it became logical for us to come back and make the difference.
On Kieran Gibbs’ possible red card at the end of the first half…
“I was like everybody else from Arsenal; scared it could be a red card. I hoped it would be a yellow. At that moment I thought that Mikael Silvestre was behind Gibbs and I hoped it would be a yellow. I still think our goalkeeper would have got the ball – it was not a goal chance, he had pushed the ball too far.
“Like the rest of our defence in the first half we were a bit on the back foot. We became stronger and stronger and in the second half he was much better.”
On the chances of coming back if Gibbs had been dismissed…
“I don’t know, we would have tried – that’s the only guarantee I can give you. We have shown great character and mental strength again for such a young team. We have shown some quality and mental quality that are very interesting for the future.”
On the performance of Theo Walcott…
“The whole team, Theo Walcott as well, were not on the ball enough. We had problems getting rid of the man-to-man marking from the Wigan players. once we took over they couldn’t maintain the pace and we became dangerous.”
On another defensive injury problem…
“Johan Djourou has a knee problem and that’s the bad news of the day. It looks as though he’ll be out for Wednesday. We lost two central defenders in two games, we have a few more games to go and we haven’t got enough of them to lose one every game.”
