
Without the creative passing of Mesut Özil and the individuality of Alexis Sanchez we lacked that bit of quality in the final third when it really mattered. I thought we had enough about us to have beaten Stoke, we looked the stronger of the two sides but in games where the legs do not move as freely as you would wish, you sometimes need that additional bit of quality to unlock the door
![]()
A mixture of the goal as well as Cesc being off the pitch meant that we yanked up the handbrake and just kept the ball. We totally eased off the pressure and turned it into a training exercise. We slowed the game down too much to score anymore goals. Stoke were absolutely shameful