Wenger praises 'disciplined and organised' performance

Last updated : 07 January 2007 By Chris Parry
"Thierry's goal was great, it was a fine run and he is getting his strength back, that's quite important at this level when you have been out for a time. He showed that when he went past two Liverpool defenders and had the legs to do that at a critical time in the match.

"But you know he can do that. But the fact that he has worked very hard and can do that in the last 10 minutes says a lot about the effort he has put in. I think the break has benefited him. At this level you need to have the strength to be able to fight for every ball in such a game, and to do that you need to be fresh mentally.

"When you have been in the final of the Champions League and then the World Cup, it takes it out of you. Players are not machines and he needed to be refreshed."

"We had a united, determined, disciplined and organised performance and in the first half we restricted them to very few chances, apart from crosses. In fact they had very few chances in the match and when we scored two like that at the end if the first half, it made it very difficult for them.

"When they came back to 2-1 I was worried, because we had heavy legs at that stage. Had they had a little more spark they could have equalised. But Thierry killed the game off with his goal.

"But I felt Liverpool gave everything and their crowd was absolutely fabulous, you can only admire what that crowd did because they played every ball for 90 minutes. They have a fantastic support at Anfield."