Arsenal Manager, Arsène Wenger faced the media after the game and discussed the result, his team’s lack of urgency and his team selection.
Assessing the 2-0 EFL Cup quarter-final defeat by Southampton Wenger said that the team created a mountain to climb.
“We had a disappointing performance, especially in the first half. We gave ourselves a mountain to climb,” he told the press as quoted by the club’s official site.
“We were not good enough defensively and gave cheap goals away in the first half. In the second half it was better but it was one of these nights where we looked like we could play for two hours without scoring a goal.”
“We didn’t have enough urgency in the first half, we were weak in some departments and we paid for that.”
Following the two early goal lead, Arsenal boss praised the sharpness of the visitors in defensive part to ensure that they do not concede any goal, building more pressure to his players.
“We were not incisive enough in the first half, especially. In the second half they played very deep and were sharper than us. With a two-goal advantage, everybody defended very well.”
“If you give a handicap of two goals in the first half against a Premier League team, it’s difficult.”
Wenger regrets
“I have regrets on having lost the game. I think we have played well until now and when you look at the players who have played tonight, some of the players who didn’t play tonight were on the edge.\,” he said.
“When you look at the team we played, in midfield we had Coquelin, Ramsey, Elneny, afterwards Xhaka. Up front we had Lucas, Giroud was injured.”
“We had Iwobi, who is a regular player in the first team. I don’t think the problem was there – we had players who are used to top-level competition but I think we maybe didn’t have the right urgency from the start on.”