Arsene Wenger: Arsenal devastated after loss to Birmingham City in Carling Cup final
Arsene Wenger has gone on to claim that almost all of the Arsenal squad is currently devastated and heartbroken, following the team's comedic yet horrifying loss to Birmingham City in the Carling Cup final this past Sunday.
The manager is reported to have said, "Everyone is devastated in the dressing room, they (the players) are destroyed, and I don't want to add to that...I am bitterly disappointed like the whole team. We had some problems to start the game, the number of games we played caught up a little bit on us."
"We have to be strong enough to stand up to it and show that we have the mental strength to respond. What we have achieved so far is amazing -- only one defeat in 18 games, and in the last minute here."
Following the defeat to Birmingham, Arsenal have now missed out on an opportunity to end their trophy-less drought which has spread back to six years now.
The most hurtful aspect of the defeat for the manager and the team was to conceded the late, 89th minute goal. After a mix-up between http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Wojciech-Szczesny-c36998, the ball managed to evade the Arsenal duo and get into the path of Obafimi Martins. The Birmingham forward then had the entire net to aim for, as there was no Arsenal player marking him, or blocking his path.
However, Wenger has tried to compel his team to hold together, considering the fact that not all hope is lost just yet. The Gunners are potentially still in contention of landing as many as three trophies by the end of the season and can show just how strong their mentality is, by bouncing back in their upcoming FA Cup clash with Leyton Orient.
The game against Orient is currently set to be a replay of the two teams' previous encounter, and the Gunners will really need to pull it together against the team, just to prove that their season hasn’t gone to nothing just yet.
Nonetheless, just losing to Birmingham was not the only low point of the game against Birmingham. Arsenal’s in-form Dutch forward http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Robin-van-Persie-c31380 is reported to have picked up a knock to his knee and could potentially miss out on the next three weeks of footballing action for the team.
However, it is still too early to assess the player’s situation and it will be a wait for another day or two to determine just how the player is really doing.
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