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Arsene Wenger has had his say on all-things World Cup.

The Arsenal boss has been in Brazil for this summer's tournament - although it appeared most of that was spent on Ipanema beach.

We now know he was casting an eye over potential signings, most notably Alexis Sanchez, who joined the Gunners for £32million on Thursday.

But what else has Wenger enjoyed and what has left him disappointed?

Here's all his thoughts in an interview with beIN Sports.

What happened to England in the World Cup?

I think the biggest problem for England in the World Cup was that in their strong periods of a match they never took advantage of their domination and in their weak periods of the game they would always concede straightaway with a goal.

That’s just something that you cannot do when you are in the weak periods of the game. If you start to panic then your opponent will make you pay.

And for me, whenever England came under pressure they always looked likely to concede. Also I think the tournament showed that in big important periods of the game they have sometimes lacked quality. Of course the potential is there but they lack maturity and they lack balance between the offensive and defensive.

What went wrong for the French team then?

I think they were only knocked out because they played and were defeated by the team that will probably win the Win Cup. Personally I still felt that they were a bit inhibited against Germany and they didn’t raise their level enough to force the decision. Because there were no expectations this year, it almost felt like they were happy to be were they were – to have reached the competition quarter-finals.

I personally think they had more in their lockers on the day but they refused to get it out. This game was winnable against Germany and the regret you have of this World Cup was that in the quarter-final France did not absolutely raise their level to the optimum.

At the business end of a tournament, how important are players like Franck Ribery?

Yes, very important because you need players that make the decisions. When everything is going well then you just need your team performance to be focused. But when things are going badly then you need a guy can take the ball and create something special.

I ask you now, would Argentina be in the World Cup final without Messi? Would Holland be in the semi-final without Robben? You would certainly say no. Would Brazil have gone through the group stages without Neymar? Certainly no.

Read more: Watch the best goals of the tournament and vote for YOUR favourite.

That means the big players are important because they can make something special on their own, but as well, when you sit in the dressing room before a big game and you look around you and you see superstars like Messi and Neymar then you always know you have a player that can deliver something and it increases the belief of the team as a whole. Even just their presence sometimes is very important in these kind of highly-pressurised games.

How much potential does Paul Pogba have as a player?

Paul Pogba is a world-class player potentially and I think he has absolutely every quality that every footballer could dream to have. He has the power, the charisma, the technique – he walks out onto the field and all eyes are on him – and he has this incredible acceleration and pace. To see him at high speed during France’s games was absolutely amazing and he is the fastest player in France. So you would think he could take it all the way.

I think the only question mark is whether he really wants it mentally. He will answer that question certainly in the coming years but potential-wise I think he is the best midfielder of tomorrow in the world.

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Did you expect Colombia to make the quarter-finals?

Look, no, not before the competition but I must say they have done exceptionally well and I know Rodriguez well because he plays in the French Championship for Monaco and I was absolutely amazed by the quality of his games. For me it was the intelligence of his passing, the suppleness of him and the fluency of his game. It also was the speed of his decision making. The penetrative passes he made were just absolutely fantastic. You just wanted to see him have the ball and when you want somebody to have the ball it is always a sign of exceptional quality and he definitely has that.

Is he too big for Monaco?

I believe that’s true. Why? Because a player like that is difficult to keep at a club when you have Real Madrid and Barcelona looking around, and without a doubt there will be people who will be watching them play and thinking about buying him. Is this the year that he will move? Certainly not because he is with Monaco and they will play Champions League next season and they are a big club in France. But certainly in the next season or two he will want to move somewhere else.

Vote for your player of the tournament here

Was he given enough protection against the Brazilians?

I think it was the regret of the World Cup for me that the South American teams played against each other too early in the competition. In the first round of the World Cup the dominant teams were the South Americans but in the same afternoon you had Brazil vs. Colombia and Chile vs. Uruguay and that meant two South American teams had to go out. Of course you could see the passion of these games and the Brazil vs Colombia game was exceptional. But yes, the passions got a bit too overboard and Brazil were a bit too harsh against James Rodriguez in that match. But, overall, on that front the World Cup has not been bad.

(Image: Jamie Squire)

Five Africa teams. Not one in the quarter-finals, why?

Why? Because I don’t think it’s purely down to quality. I think it comes down to organisational problems before the World Cup and during the World Cup.

I think what hurt football fans both in Cameroon and Nigeria – two big footballing nations – was not that their countries did not reach the quarter-finals, it was the fact that both teams had no solidarity and they had problems that were exposed all over the world before the competition and that’s the main reason. Football is difficult enough when you are united but if you are not united at that stage then you have no chance.

Having said that, I would still like to give some credit to Algeria. They played so well and at some points they even made Germany look average in that quarter-final and they were the only country who could do that.

Overall though I would have liked to have seen more from the African countries.

What did you like about the Algerian team?

What I liked about Algeria is that in the first game they looked a bit overwhelmed by the competition but they then immediately transformed in the second game against Korea and after that you started paying attention. They continued and they were incisive and I liked that and also there are many players for Algeria who were born in France and I like that they have come back to their country and given absolutely everything, I like that as well.

Did Belgium play as well as they could have done?

Look, before the World Cup I thought Belgium could either go out in the group stage or they could go to the World Cup final. Why? Because they have the quality of the players but they have no recent history and they were in-between in fact and they did finally get knocked out but I think they have laid down foundations for future success and, when they will go home and digest what happened to them, then I am sure they will come back stronger and they could be one of the contenders for the 2016 in the European Championships.

Did Eden Hazard play as well as he could?

No, he did not play as well as I know he could and in the Premier League he is an exceptional player and he is a fantastic player who makes things happen and I always had the idea that with Eden Hazard nothing affects him. In the big games he is great but in this tournament when Belgium really needed him he could not really deliver and I believe it’s mental.

He is still young and the World Cup belongs to people between 25 and 30, you know, and we have seen Messi before going to World Cups and being anonymous. And whilst he was dominant for his club, he struggled for Argentina. So there is a huge pressure that is put on players in the World Cup and only the really experienced players can handle that.

What was your game of the tournament? Vote here

There was huge pressure on Brazil. How and why did they lose 7-1?

There were certainly many different things that contributed to that but overall they did not have enough quality. They were overly reliant on Neymar and I believe as well there was too much emotion and they were not protected enough and I thought sometimes when I watched the television that watching Brazil was like watching a reality TV show. It was 24-hour television inside that camp and every single movement of the players was focused on television and I believe it affected them.

When you go into a game you need to focus and prepare, but if you are exposed everyday then you cannot develop a natural toughness and I think the emotions got to them. It was just emotionally too much to perform at the top level. I think they may come to that conclusion as well. But the players had to cry all the time, there was so much pressure to look emotional and I think you end up being inhibited by the emotion, paralysed by it. Every time a guy got the ball there was no Brazil player around him looking to take the ball because they were under too much pressure.

You were at the game, how did you see it from a tactical perspective from the stands?

From a tactical point of view, honestly, it was absolutely horrendous. Of course, it would be too easy for me to point the finger at the manager. I have been a coach long enough now to see these things happen to me and sometimes your team confidence can just go completely but I am a long-term admirer of Brazil on the football front.

In the end I think you’ve got to give the credit to the German team though because I sat there and just saw them handle all the pressure, creating wave after wave of attack even though they were playing the most famous footballing nation in the world on their home turf. On the night I think many people shared that feeling as well.

Obviously, emotionally when you lose by such a big score it is impossible to deal with but I felt more pain for what happened to Brazil because they just completely fell apart. Even if you take 11 young kids of 18-years-old and make them play against Germany, they will not concede four goals in six minutes. To me it just shows that they were paralysed on the pitch.

Were you impressed by the Dutch?

Yes, I saw them in March against France and they were absolutely second-best everywhere. But they came back here and they were amazing. They were well-organised with many players who had no experience of a World Cupand I believe you have to give credit to Van Gaal and his staff. Because I liked as well how the decisions he made were clear, how the timing of his decisions were always right and in my opinion it was the right decision everytime. So in my opinion, he deserves a lot of credit.

(Image: Matthias Hangst)

Are you looking forward to competing against his Manchester United squad next year?

Yes, I think he is going to be a fantastic manager in the Premier League and I am sure that United will be competitors this year for the Championship and that will be more interesting. Because he can beat maybe Arsenal but then he might lose to Chelsea, then you’ve got Manchester City as well and Liverpool. So yes, it’s going to be an interesting league.

What did you think of his decision to put Tim Krul on?

Look, I don’t think it’s a brave decision. I think it was a decision that was meant to impact psychologically on the penalty takers on the other team and on that front it was a clever decision. But you could also see as well why he made that decision and the decision made sense and was very clever.

Holland were free-scoring in the group stages but then the goals seemed to dry up. Can you say why you think that might have happened?

Yes, I think as the World Cup goes on and the games get harder then you are more likely to score less goals. I believe as well that with Argentina vs Holland, what happened the night before had a psychological impact. When you see a team like Brazil get destroyed by 7, you start to think to yourself, ‘wait, that could happen to us’, and everybody is on the backfoot. Every team wants to then make sure that they don’t get punished like that and you could see that the next day there was no real drive to go forward. But overall, until the last 16 it was alright for Holland.

How important is Messi on Sunday?

With Messi he looks really to be motivated and although he didn’t look like that in South Africa, this time he looks on board and I like the look of him. Having said that, he still hasn’t reached his top gear. Compared to the Messi I know, he is a fraction of a second behind his usual self – I don’t know if that’s anything to do with the fact that he was injured many times last season and he hasn’t been able to let it go completely. But he’s just not in the same place physically as where he was before. However, despite this, all the rest is there with Messi and I have never seen him so extrovert emotionally as he is now with the national team.

Eighth final for Germany. Why are they so consistent?

It’s a football country and it’s a country who are realistic and when they have a problem they sort it out and it’s the same economically. You know, Germany is doing well throughout Europe on an economic front and their football is well organised and they have improved their technical qualities and today they are the most technical team at the World Cup and so that’s credit to their youth work and they are rewarded now for having made the right decisions.

Have they got what it takes to beat Argentina?

Yes they have got what it takes. Of course, the problem with many European countries is that don’t produce enough strikers and then they come to the World Cup and they can struggle. And of course, it’s the opposite way round for the South Americans – they produce lots of strikers but not enough defenders. But that’s why I believe Germany has got the best team – because they have Klose, Gomez and Muller who can play up front as well.

How will the final be won?

By a set-piece certainly, because we have seen one of the interesting things for Germany is that they came home from previous tournaments thinking that they were not good enough on set-pieces and so they worked on it and they beat France on a set-piece and they scored the first goal against Brazil with a set-piece, so that is one interesting thing that happens in a World Cup. So it can be on a set-piece or something else – you can always bet on something special when you have Messi or Muller on the field.