Lukas Podolski has admitted he was unhappy at being taken off in the FA Cup semi-final, and his role in the team which rarely sees him complete the 90 minutes.

That has been the situation more or less since his arrival from Cologne, and speaking after the Wembley win over Wigan, when he was taken off in the 68th minute, he said, “You cannot be happy with this situation. I play and in the last games, I always come out and of course you cannot be happy when you always go out after 60, 70 minutes.

“When you go out and you are happy, you are not a footballer so of course I am not happy always to be substituted. It’s the decision of the boss, he is the manager. He decides who comes in, who comes out, who are the first XI.

“It’s not always easy when you play for a big club but of course I am not happy to always come out and watch from outside.”

The German forward is likely to start against West Ham on Tuesday, as Arsene Wenger tries to add some fresh legs to his team, and Podolski says the team have to now focus on the league to avoid the ‘disaster’ of missing out on the Champions League.

“Every season is a pressure when you don’t win anything and the newspapers speak about it, the fans gets nervous but we have the chance this year to win the FA Cup so maybe it helps the club, us and the boss.

“But the other important thing is to get fourth place back because when you don’t play in the Champions League, it’s a disaster.

“We don’t forget the league because we are fifth now, we are not qualified for the Champions League, so we must do our work on the pitch – starting on Tuesday and this is an important thing.”