Arsenal boss Unai Emery and his players have bared their minds on the club’s sumptuos victory over Serie A giants Napoli away from home.
The Gunners sealed their Europa League semi finals ticket after Alexandre Lacazette’s fine first-half free-kick settled the tie with gaol aggregate (3-0).
Emery speaking to BT Sport: “I’m proud of the players and for the supporters who came here with us. We started very well, continuing to not give them anything in the second leg. Over the two matches we deserved to win. [His former club] Valencia? They’re a very good team with a very good coach.”
Laurent Koscielny speaking to BT Sport. “We know they played in the Champions League and they’re a good team,” said Koscielny. But we knew keeping a clean sheet at home was the important thing.
“We came here with ambition and wanted to win and score some goals. We did it with Laca. We keep a clean sheet, which is important for the confidence. Each game we have in front of us is a final. Tomorrow we switch back to the Premier League.”
Sokratis Papastathopoulos speaking to UEFA.com: “We had a great match agains a great team. We want to win against Valencia, and why not, go all the way.”
Petr Cech: “We controlled the game really well and defended really well too.
“Napoli are a fantastic team who always score a lot of goals, especially here at home, so to keep two clean sheets is obviously something [positive].
“It was a very difficult game but we made it look easier because we played really well.”
Emery on Ramsey’s hamstring injury: “It is a muscular injury. Normally it will be some weeks out for him. But we have other players and we can find a performance and rotate players.I don’t know [if tonight was his last match for Arsenal].
Emery speaking to UEFA.com: “We managed to play our football, our positional play. Now of course we want to carry on like this.”
More from Emery: ”We worked to give them a hard time with our pressure, both tactically and individually. We stopped them from attacking as they do. We did very well.”
Napoli forward Dries Mertens speaking to UEFA.com: “The fans were great. We wanted to score the first goal and put pressure on Arsenal. We had chances but we couldn’t do it.”
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