Ozil and Sanchez will be out of contract at Arsenal at the end of next season and negotiations over extensions have been stalling, but they proved their worth with a goal each to send the Gunners one point behind fourth-placed Liverpool, who take on West Ham on Sunday. A plane flew over the ground early on with a banner displaying the message "WENGER - OUT MEANS OUT!' There was also a sign that said 'WENGER OUT" held up in the away section pre-match - perhaps unsurprisingly, there was little evidence of it thereafter.
"I am paid to do my job, for a club I love, and I will do that as long as I am here, with full commitment".
"All I can do is my best".
The 67-year-old said: "I want to focus on football and all the rest is, for me, less important".
"I am not in politics, I am in sport".
"If you allow quality players, and Arsenal have certainly got them, to play incisive passes behind your back four then you've got to be able to deal with that and unfortunately that's what has taken the game away from us".
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In some of the other Premier League games played on Saturday, Wilfred Ndidi's Leicester City was pipped 2-1 by Manchester City while the poor run for Victor Anichebe and his relegated Sunderland teammates continued as they were beaten 2-0 at home by Swansea City.
Restored to the starting line-up, Olivier Giroud opened the scoring from close range after 42 minutes and Mesut Ozil doubled the advantage after the break.
"There's certain parts of our play which are good, we can cause problems to good teams, but in key moments in games when you have to be resolute and strong minded, we've let ourselves down".
Stoke boss Mark Hughes, whose 13th-placed side have won only one of their last 10 matches, expressed his frustration after a contest in which the Potters only really came to life having gone 2-0 down.
"We were okay and had a good shape in the first half, but in terms of what we wanted to do in attack, that didn't really happen for us".
"The most hard thing against a team like Stoke is scoring the first goal, and after that, we had to be efficient".
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