Arsenal attacker Lukas Podolski was grateful to his former FC Cologne fans yesterday.

Podolski struck twice against his old club.

He told Arsenal Player: "It was a great match and in my first game I scored two goals, so it was very good. It was a good test for us and I hope we can win against Sunderland next week.

"It was not so easy [to score against Cologne]. I played a lot of games for a lot of years in Cologne.

"They were my club when I was a young boy, so it is not easy to score two goals against your team.

"You see after the game that [the fans] still love me! I was very surprised about the Arsenal fans because there were a lot in the stadium. I heard them cry my name and I was very surprised!"