Wenger buoyed by Arsenal promise

Arsène Wenger, Arsenal manager
We eliminated the holders with a great performance. I am very proud of the players because we played with enthusiasm and dominated the game without making any mistakes. We knew we did not have to give space to players like [Andrea] Pirlo and Kaká and we were perfect in this sense tonight. In football it is very difficult to say after a game if one team was very good or if the other was not at their best but I want to focus only on my team and we played a great game tonight. We fully deserved to qualify considering both games. Still, I have lots of respect for Milan. They remain a fantastic side, especially for what they have done in recent years. Now our dream is obviously to win both the Premier League and the UEFA Champions League. This team is very hungry for success. Young players like ours want to win everything and this victory can also help us to play better in the domestic league.

Carlo Ancelotti, Milan coach
They played as they know for the whole 180 minutes while we did it only for a few periods in each game. They deserved to qualify because they pressed us both in London and Milan and did not allow us to play as we wanted to. I'm just disappointed because tonight we conceded a goal exactly when the game seemed to go our way, when we were starting to play a bit better. However I don't think we could have done much more than this. We gave our best so have no regrets. This is football. Sometimes you win, sometimes you have to accept a defeat and restart from there with a new goal. Now we have to focus on reaching the fourth place in Serie A. Their three midfielders Fabregas, [Mathieu] Flamini and [Aleksandr] Hleb did a great job pressing our midfield. Their performance was the real key over the two games. Arsenal are very good, young and full of enthusiasm. We had to be at our very best to beat them but we probably weren't tonight.