Arsenal’s season a disappointment without Champions League – Cech

“He will be here next year because he has a contract with us and hopefully we will manage to extend it”.

Wenger was given a four-match touchline ban and £25,000 fine following his conduct towards Taylor, who was the fourth official for Arsenal’s 2-1 win over Burnley on January 22.

Sergio Aguero had given the Sky Blues the lead but the Gunners showed a sense of resilience to come back, Sanchez grabbing the victor with a close range finish in extra time.

“Sometimes you have periods of games where you prepare and do the right things but the game starts and it goes completely wrong”.

The defeat for City means Guardiola will finish his first season at The Etihad Stadium without a trophy.

“I had no approach from Marseille and we want to keep Olivier Giroud at the club”, said Wenger.

The competition is Arsenal’s last hope of silverware in what still could be Wenger’s final season at the club, having suffered Champions League elimination in the last 16 and languishing seventh in the Premier League. Alexis Sanchez scored the game winning goal, and once the match was over, handed his shirt to a very lucky young fan.

However, the Gunners have a chance to go sixth on Wednesday night, 3 points behind Manchester United and 4 points behind Manchester City in 5th and 4th respectively, both of whom have played one game more than Arsenal now and will face each other on Thursday night.

“I feel the club is in a very strong shape”, he said.

“Seeing the Arsenal match (against Manchester City) it didn’t look like turmoil to me, there were players fighting and they thoroughly deserved to win in the end, even though it was a close game”, Shakespeare said.

“At some stage you need to focus on something for the players which creates some confidence”. They showed a united, determined and playful response.

“I’m not sure how many points it will take (to stay up) and the weekend proved that…”

“We had a hard period when the team was losing games it shouldn’t have lost and then you come to the situation where you play under pressure and need to find a way out”. We have to do that job and we will see what can happen.