Arsene Wenger refuses to point fingers at defence
Arsene Wenger is disappointed with his side’s performance against Ipswich in the Carling Cup; however, the Arsenal manager refuses to blame his weakened defence for the loss. Ipswich won the first leg of the Carling Cup semi-final 1-0, ensuring that they
take a deserved one goal lead to the Emirates Stadium for the second leg.
On paper, it looks like a shocking loss for Arsenal. But when you look at the performances of both teams, it seems astonishing that the hosts didn’t win by a bigger margin. Ipswich striker Tamas Priskin asked questions of the Arsenal defence all night, and
unfortunately for Arsene Wenger, his weakened back four could produce no answers.
Arsene Wenger has had to deal with injuries to two of his most experienced defenders in recent weeks, leaving just two first team defenders available to him for this game. The Arsenal manager was forced to use the inexperienced http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Kieran-Gibbs-c20945 and the underperforming
Emmanuel Eboue for yesterday’s Carling Cup semi-final.
However, the Arsenal manager insists that his side’s frailties at the back were not the reason for the defeat. Wenger said, “Let's not think that we lost the game because we haven't bought a central defender. We lost the game because we didn't play as well
as we can. We have only two central defenders and we are short but I do not want to speak about any particular name.”
Wenger went on to blame Arsenal’s crowded fixture list for the loss. But this excuse hardly holds up when you consider that Ipswich had a similarly congested schedule. The Arsenal manager said, “Frankly I am just disappointed about our defeat tonight. We
have nine games in January and it happens sometimes that you don't always play well in every game. As a team we did not have the performance we wanted. We were below our usual level in every department and it would be unfair to put the blame in the defence.”
Ipswich will now be trying to transform this one goal lead into a Carling Cup semi-final victory; however, coming away with a result at the Emirates stadium might just prove to be an insurmountable task for the nPower Championship side.
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