"If you watched the game it is difficult to say how much we have missed him but you don't need to explain to anyone that it is important. I do not see all the games but what is very interesting for us is Cesc gets stronger and stronger and has more personality on the pitch, like the whole team.

"He grows. He will be 23 this year - he is just starting."

"Sometimes it looked, from the outside, that he got harshly treated. That is linked with gifted players. It is difficult to take the ball off them but he is the guy who touches the ball more than anyone else so it is not illogical the opposition should try to stop him playing.

"We expected a fully-committed Bolton team and we were not disappointed. They gave absolutely everything and put us under pressure a lot but we tried to put the ball down and play, sometimes it worked very well during spells in the first half.

"I expected them to drop a little bit at the beginning of the second half as we dropped our level but they had a period for 20 minutes when they had chances and looked dangerous because we lost too many balls in midfield.

"It was important for us not to get to the last 15 minutes only one goal up and the second goal killed the game."

"We are a big club and it happened last year, in October and November, that we were not fighting for the championship. Now we have a chance so let's go."

"We are in a quite interesting position where nobody expected us to be. When the season started we were not all convinced in our squad that we could be where we are today."