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Arsene Wenger plots emergency winger move to combat Arsenal’s injury hell

Oxlade-Chamberlain lasted just five minutes of Tuesday’s humiliating 3-0 defeat to Championship side Sheffield Wednesday in the League Cup with a hamstring complaint.

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Arsenal gave full debuts to two of their youth players but were left counting the cost as both Alex Oxlade Chamberlain and Theo Walcott were injured during the match.

Wenger hopes Arsenal can avoid an injury crisis, with key games against Swansea City and bitter city rivals Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League and the Champions League match against Bayern Munich.

“A lot of people look at us say we are a hard-working team, but we have quality too. You have to wait 48 hours for the scans to see how big the damage is”, Wenger said.

“It was a bad night at the office for us”.

He said: “Maybe too many experienced players played here. I left six players at home and I still lost two to injury”.

“They are out until after the worldwide break”, Wenger said. “I didn’t bring them on because I couldn’t afford to lose any more players”.

Cazorla has won plaudits for his performances in the middle of the park for the Gunners, helping to control games with his cool head and pin-point passing – and the Arsenal boss is reluctant to move the Spaniard.

And former Arsenal striker Thierry Henry believes Ozil is finally demonstrating the form that persuaded his old club to pay £42 million ($64.3m, 58.6m euros) for the player two years ago.

Wenger is already without Jack Wilshere, Aaron Ramsey, Danny Welbeck, Tomas Rosicky, Mikel Arteta and David Ospina.

The problem of an accumulation of injuries has been haranguing Arsenal for the better part of the last decade, with many a title challenge falling through owing to lack of proper injury management.

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Wenger will be aware of the calls to add, which are likely to intensify over the coming weeks, as he has regularly come in for criticism as a result of his prudent approach to squad reinforcement.

Manuel Pellegrini and Kelechi Iheanacho