Wenger proud as Gunners find range

Arsène Wenger revealed his immense pride as his young Arsenal FC side took a major step towards the knockout stages of the UEFA Champions League with a resounding 5-2 win at Fenerbahçe SK. "Our experience and technique made the difference," said the Frenchman, whose opposite number Luis Aragonés bemoaned his players' overemphasis on attacking play but has not yet given up hope of rising from the foot of Group G to qualify – for the UEFA Cup at least.

Arsène Wenger, Arsenal manager
It was a very open game. Fenerbahçe are a very dangerous, attacking team but our experience and technique made the difference tonight. I am very happy that we scored five goals. We played really well and forced Fenerbahçe to come out. The average age of the players was 22 and I am really proud of them. We started the game strong, remained strong and finished strong. My players are very confident about themselves. We need one more victory to say that we will progress from this stage. We scored the first two goals early on and then the game became an open, attacking game. Manchester United also won tonight and this season English teams will again be very successful in the UEFA Champions League. Fenerbahçe have a great coach but he needs some time.

Luis Aragonés, Fenerbahçe coach
Arsenal pressured us a lot in the first eleven minutes and by then it was already 0-2. After that we scored a goal but it was not enough. We focused too much on the attacking side of our game and didn't concentrate enough on defence. We had a lot of goalscoring opportunities but we can't take the same positives from the defensive side. My players made a lot of mistakes tonight but we still have games to play and if there are more games there is always a chance. So we still have a chance to qualify, or at least progress to the UEFA Cup. We have to learn from our mistakes when we play the return against Arsenal on 5 November.