Wenger: My big decision on Gabriel and Monreal

Arsene Wenger has revealed that fear of losing more players to injury forced him to keep his senior players on the bench on Tuesday.

The Gunners succumbed to a 3-0 defeat at Sheffield Wednesday, bowing out of the League cup at the round of 16 stage.

However, there were more losses for Wenger’s men on the night as Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was forced off with an injury after just five minutes before his replacement Theo Walcott suffered the same fate.

Interestingly, the Arsenal manager chose youth over experience in his two remaining substitutions as Ismael Bennacer and Krystian Bielik were introduced.

With Gabriel and Nacho Monreal available on the bench, there was an option to strengthen the line-up defensively as the home side’s threat grew, but the Frenchman insists that he could not risk any more injuries to his first team stars.

“I have to manage the workload of the players and at the end of the day I still think I brought too many experienced players here.” Wenger said

“We lost two players. Once I lost two players, I had Gabriel and Monreal and I did not bring them on as we could not afford to lose any more players.”

Arsenal now have seven outfield players sidelined after refusing to make any other signing following the arrival of Petr Cech in the summer.

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