Wenger: 'We were not dangerous enough'

It was a disappointing performance from us on Sunday.

The competitive level of Stoke was higher than ours and I think we lost the game because Stoke defended much better than we did and with much more purpose. At the end of the day we were not dangerous enough.

Stoke are a good team and they have a lot of confidence with the FA Cup Final coming up next weekend. Maybe if they had needed to fight from 1-0 down it would have been a different story on Sunday but from 1-0 up they defended well and caught us on the break.

We have been inconsistent and if you do not turn up with the same competitive spirit in every game you can lose anywhere. Stoke defend well and make it difficult so the most important thing at the Britannia Stadium is not to be 1-0 down, but after their first free kick we were 1-0 down.

We have conceded, I think, 21 goals from set pieces and only 17 in open play. That's fewer than anybody else in open play but it's clear we have been caught on set-pieces.

On Sunday Kenwyne Jones didn't even need to jump to head the ball in and that is something we have to correct. It is the easiest thing to correct but you still must understand the flight of the ball and want to be first to the ball.

Aaron Ramsey returned to the scene of his injury and he did alright, he was not scared. But of course he is still short of sharpness because he has not played enough games.

Substituting him was just a tactical thing because we were 2-0 down and needed to go for more penetration. We had a lot of possession but not a lot of progression.

We played poorly on Sunday but my team has done well overall this season. If you analyse all the competitions and how we have done, we have done well. Something has gone and you could see that at Stoke but we have to take a distance and make the right analysis of the season.