Wenger not carried away by epic recovery

After all the angry controversy at Stamford Bridge on Sunday, the almost innocent chaos at the Madejski Stadium on Wednesday was a welcome break. Instead of talking about anything untoward, we were talking about pure entertainment.

Not that Arsene Wenger totally saw it like that. Although he initially described his team’s remarkable 7-5 win over Reading as a “miracle”, the Arsenal manager was a little more reserved later on. Despite a game so high on goals and drama, he wasn’t too high on emotion.

“We went from disaster to, I must say at least at some stage, pride because we at least came back in the second half with a decent performance. We had just hope but it didn’t look like we would go through. At least in the second half, we got our disastrous first half out of the system. Then, once it was 4-4, I think it looked like we would be the winner of the game. Reading had given a lot, and [were] mentally down, and in extra-time, the maximum they could have got was a penalty shoot-out.”