This is a dubious claim from Wenger, but Sanchez will be a massive loss for the Gunners for the foreseeable future.
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“[Despite injuries] they still have a top quality squad of global players”, the Sunderland manager said, reports the club’s official website.
They must start their hard month without former England striker Jermain Defoe, who suffered a hamstring injury as they beat Stoke last Saturday.
Wenger, though, hopes adversity will bring the best out of his players.
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has confirmed that Alexis Sanchez and Santi Cazorla will miss Saturday’s game against Sunderland. “Players who were injured last week won’t play, maybe [Laurent] Koscielny is in the squad, maybe [Theo] Walcott – there will be a decision [on Walcott] tomorrow morning”, the Frenchman told reporters.
Wenger is convinced Arsenal are capable of coping in the absence of two of their most influential players.
“Alexis had four weeks holiday, he was rested in some games and had all the medical signs to say he was okay to play between Dinamo Zagreb and Norwich”, he said.
“Sanchez is a hamstring but I don’t know how long it will take, because usually he’s a quick one to recover”, Wenger said.
Statistics emerged this week showing Arsenal have had more injured players since the summer of 2010 than any other Premier League team. That injury came from an accidental collision with Gary O’Neil, but Wenger had harsh words for his Norwich team-mate Bennett, who pushed Sanchez into a cameraman by the side of the pitch.
He added: “I don’t know”.
“We want the crowd to be behind the team and help us to do it”.
The Spaniard was able to carry on but despite the injury getting progressively worse as the game went on, he was forced to complete the full ninety minutes as we’d already made all three of our substitutions.
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However Jack Wilshere (broken leg), Danny Welbeck (knee), Mikel Arteta (calf) and Tomas Rosicky (knee) remain sidelined along with Cazorla and Sanchez. “I am very happy that their club is getting good results”.
