Having already promoting promises of their maturity this season, Arsenal, once again left some question mark for their fans’ hopes after the Gunners surprisingly suffered a 1-0 in the Carling Cup against Ipswich Town, despite fielding a pretty strong squad.
One of the cause of the defeat is being placed in the defensive department as with many injuries facing their main defenders, the substitutes’ quality seemed far behind. However, Arsene Wenger reject the claim stating that the back line should be blamed for the defeat, revealing that tiredness and lack of creativity up front were the things that cost them the game.
Missing some important names such as Thomas Vermalen and Sebastian Squillaci, the Gunners’ defense have been a suspect in some recent games and seemed to encouraged the fans in asking for reinforcement for the position. However, once again Wenger denied that not having a new central defender is the main problem that his team’s are facing as the results was determined by the performance of the whole team not just one aspect of the squad.
“Let’s not think that we lost the game because we haven’t bought a central defender. We lost the game because we didn’t play as well as we can. We have only two central defenders and we are short but I do not want to speak about any particular name,” Wenger said. “As a team we did not have the performance we wanted. We were below our usual level in every department and it would be unfair to put the blame in the defence.
“We rely a lot on our sharp and crisp passing and that was a problem tonight. We looked in control in the first half but looked much more vulnerable after the break. I put that down to fatigue,” the French manager added.
Despite of Wenger’s refusal of admitting that the absence of his main central defenders are worrying him, the tactician is still denying the need of adding another central defender claiming that there can still be a solution to handle the absentees. However, the coach didn’t actually close the door on the opportunity in signing a new defender this January but it seems that he wants to look for the perfect player that won’t need lots of settling and can be used in all of the Gunners’ competition.
Surely with the unclear injury situation that hit Thomas Vermalen, who is pretty much Arsenal’s current best center back, Wenger is seriously looking for someone worthy to at least fill the gap until the Belgium international recover from his problem. Unfortunately, looking a quality player that won’t need much adaptation in the league in the winter is not an easy thing, that’s why the rumors linking the Gunners with some local talent such as Matthew Upson or Gary Cahill might turned out more than paper talk as those two have all the terms that suits the French tactician’s need.
photo credit: gordonflood.com
