Arsenal defender Hector Bellerin has honestly stated that the Gunners’ performance against Norwich City on Sunday was simply not good enough to merit a victory.
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“Cazorla got a kick on the knee, we don’t know if it is ligaments or just a kick on the nerve but the worrying thing is that it got worse during the game”, Wenger added.
But more worryingly it took the number of Arsenal players absent through injury up to 10, with key starters Francis Coquelin and Theo Walcott having already been ruled out for a number of games.
“It was, on the injury front, a bad afternoon for us”.
Sanchez laid on the opening goal for Mesut Ozil before recalled Lewis Grabban levelled for Norwich, who then created the better chances after the visitors had lost their talisman to a hamstring injury.
Admittedly, playing Joel Campbell or sending out Mathieu Debuchy as a winger isn’t the most ideal situation.
Multiple reports claim that Sanchez’s injury is still being assessed by Arsenal’s medical staff as Wenger faces an anxious wait to see how long his star forward is out for.
Arsenal started the game brightly pinning the hosts back in the early parts of the match.
“I would have rested Sanchez, but he said to me before the game he was fine to play”.
Sanchez started the game at Carrow Road despite Wenger admitting on Friday that the Chilean had a “slight hamstring alarm”.
Now he likely won’t be playing any minutes for a while – in a situation that appeared to be completely preventable. “The players are there to play football not to be rested when the press decided they need to be rested”. “I would have rested him but he felt perfectly alright before the game”.
Compounding Arsenal’s injury problems, Wenger revealed that midfielder Santi Cazorla had also sustained a leg injury during the game.
Sanchez played the entirety of Tuesday night’s win over Zagreb despite Wenger’s ongoing fears the Chile worldwide is suffering from fatigue and therefore susceptible to injury.
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“In the second half we tried and had a lot of possession but you could see that the penetration in the final third was not sharp enough, not incisive enough and overall we are frustrated because we wanted three points”.
