He stood by his decision to start reserve goalkeeper David Ospina at home versus Olympiacos in the UEFA Champions League yesterday, despite the result being a 3-2 defeat.
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“You can not select the team by making a poll before the game and getting everyone’s opinion”.
He added: “Do not come always back with that same story”.
“I must say we put the effort in and everything went against us tonight”.
Arsenal faces Manchester United this weekend, with the Gunners now three points behind Louis van Gaal’s league leaders, and Wenger has confirmed that he will be without Laurent Koscielny at the Emirates.
The painful home loss has left Arsenal with no points from their opening two group games, with back-to-back matches against mighty Bayern Munich to come and early elimination a real danger.
“To come always with such same story”.
“It’s the easiest choice I have to make, to pick one of those two”.
“I do not have to give you (the reason) why”, the Frenchman replied when asked why he made a decision to play Ospina.
Wenger said that he won’t give any explanations regarding all the decisions he make and Ospina is a great goal keeper who has kept many clean sheets for us and had a brilliant game against Tottenham as well.
And after facing six questions about the selection, Wenger lost his temper when he was asked if Mourinho was right in claiming he was the only Premier League manager not under pressure.
But Wenger refused to accept the abuse in silence and launched an unusually impassioned defense of his team and his tactics when he faced the media at his press conference on Friday ahead of Sunday’s clash against Manchester United.
“The experts have a lack a bit of creativity in their questions”.
“Some aspects of our game were quite good but I thought we lacked quality defensive concentration”. “We need to get behind the ball and play better defensively”, Mertesacker told the club’s website (www.arsenal.com).
Despite losing both of their first two Champions League matches, Wenger believes that Arsenal can still advance to the knockout round.
Mikel Arteta and Mathieu Flamini will also miss out against United, but Francis Coquelin is expected to be fit.
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“One day maybe I will look back, but I don’t think today is that day”.
