Arsenal’s injured England forwards Theo Walcott and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain will be sidelined for at least three weeks, manager Arsene Wenger said.
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Wenger, who will be praying there will be no further injuries ahead of next week’s crunch Champions League trip to Bayern Munich, insists his squad can cope.
Arsene Wenger today hit back over claims Arsenal’s training regime is outdated and warned critics not to overanalyse the club’s injury crisis.
Arsenal will wait 48 hours for the result of scans on England internationals Walcott and Oxlade-Chamberlain.
The night went from bad to worse for the North London club as their “4 games unbeaten streak” came to an end when they suffered a humiliating defeat to the home team and are now out of the Capital One Cup. “Majority like Arteta, Ramsey, Oxlade-Chamberlain should be back after the worldwide break”. They were not ready to play at this level, none of them.
“He can be a big help for us, and he can play centre-forward – don’t forget that”.
He continued: “We will find solutions and I have to find the right one”.
“We have not many muscle injuries, although it’s true recently, but it’s post worldwide games that we got all these injuries”.
Joel Campbell, who started but failed to make an impression on Tuesday and has yet to score a goal for Arsenal, would be the next likely option. “We have a very big squad”.
“The problem sometimes is you can destroy two departments if you move one player out”.
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Elsewhere, second-tier Hull City defeated in-form Premier League side Leicester City 5-4 on penalties after a 1-1 draw, while Everton also needed penalties to beat Norwich City, 4-3, following another 1-1 draw. “Sometimes you know ideally you have to rest a player because he has given a lot, but if he has played extremely well in the game before and you have won and the player says he feels perfectly alright, it is hard to say you don’t play”.
