Mathieu Flamini refused to blame Santi Cazorla after the Spaniard missed a late penalty during Arsenal’s 2-1 loss to West Bromwich Albion on Saturday.
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The own goal from Arteta, and the crucial misses from Cazorla and Campbell cost Arsenal a victory.
Arsenal had the chance to take the sole lead of the Premier League this weekend with Manchester City losing at home.
“I’m cautious as we had so many bad surprises on scans that I do not want to speculate more than that”, Wenger who has “not completely decided” whether to risk Ramsey for the first time since the October 20 win against Bayern Munich, told reporters on Monday. But I cannot be mad at the team because they gave what they could until the last minute but we lost a bit of focus at 1-0 – at 35 minutes we were 1-0 up and then at 45 we were 2-1 down.
“Our defending at that level was very, very poor”.
Coquelin was replaced by Arteta after just 14 minutes at The Hawthorns, before the Spaniard was taken off himself just four minutes into the second half.
“It is a disappointment to lose him”.
Coquelin and Arteta join fellow midfielders Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Aaron Ramsey, Tomas Rosicky and Jack Wilshere on Arsenal’s absentee list, now stretched to seven players. Apart from that, we were on top of them and looked like the side that was going to win the game, even in the second half’.
Arsenal were consigned to defeat despite an early goal from Olivier Giroud who, like France team-mate Laurent Koscielny, played eight days after being caught up in the horrific Paris attacks while playing for France in the friendly against Germany at the Stade de France.
Arsenal got some good fortune when Chris Brunt fouled Alexis Sanchez in the box to give Arsenal a penalty with less than 10 minutes to go in the game.
“We will give absolutely everything to stay in the Champions League”, Wenger said. “I would not explain our defeat by that”.
“The problem is that there are so many factors that intervene in an injury – how well do you sleep, how well do you eat, how much stress do you have outside the pitch?” said the Frenchman.
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“Wenger would say “I’ve got Coquelin now” but you’re thinking what if he got injured and why at times couldn’t they play together?”.
