Arsene Wenger says its no coincidence that the majority of his players are in rude health at the moment because he’s been able to fully and regularly rotate his squad so far this campaign.
The Frenchman has effectively split his squad in two, saving his ‘best’ XI for Premier League action and making use of fringe and youth players for Carabao Cup and Europa League matches.
As things stand the only long-term absentee is Santi Cazorla and the boss is pleased that there have been benefits to dropping down a level in Europe.
“Yes, I would say that’s a consequence of that,” he told his press conference ahead of tomorrow’s match with BATE Borisov. “One of the things we’ve benefited from is that, yes.”
On paper the Gunners should have an advantage going into the busy festive period. That said, the defeat to Manchester United on Saturday was a setback that the boss is still reeling from.
“I think we missed an opportunity on Saturday to take advantage of that, because we were physically quite strong in the game,” he continued.
“But we are in a position where we have to take the month of December in a very serious way, be efficient and hopefully we can benefit from that.
He added: “We play on Sunday against Southampton and it doesn’t mean that the players that play tomorrow will not play against Southampton.
“After, we have three weeks and play in the League Cup as well, so they’ll get games.”
Yeah it’s working great so far sitting in 4th and lost about 5 games already! Well done Mr Wenger another plan going well ?
5th not 4th
In all fairness to AW, it’s really the first time he has properly tried rotating the squad. Fans (including myself) have been calling for some form of roation for years to keep players fresh, & I think (or perhaps hope) it will pay off later in the season. Perhaps the rotation is only due to being in Europa rather than the CL, & of course the Carabao Cup…but it represents a change by the manager & gives valuable experience to next line of youth players. As such, I commend him for both. Yes, as you point out, we’ve lost some… Read more »
The rotation policy doesn’t really bear any fruit until after Christmas. Then we should be physically better than having not rotated. When teams naturally hit the wall in February we should be fresh. But hey let’s plant a seed and immediately shout at it for not growing into a pant.
We have a great first team bar a Patrick Vieira like DM. Strong bench with two 100 goal for Arsenal players and a 100 caps for Germany player plus bright youths. Plus a few other decent players.
With more rest we should do better this season.
We have a squad as good as anyone in the league only difference is level of the manager
Patrick Vieira was not a DM. He is the best Box to Box CM the PL has seen yet.
He was a defensive midfielder with a powerful surging run. He hardly ever went goal side of the ball and would almost never go in the opposition penalty area in open play which is why he averaged about 4 goals a season for us.
The best way to describe his play would be box to 5 yards outside the opposition box
His best midfield partners were Petit and Gilberto Silva. He was never the deepest of the two, but he was far more defensively capable than your average box to box midfielder.
He wasn’t Claude Makelele thats for sure, but was very much part of a tight midfield pair. You never saw the massive gaps between him and his partner that we see with Ramsey and Xhaka for instance
“Efficiency”. It really is his favorite buzzword.
Funny, it’s my company fav buzzword too. Of course in a ruthless corporate world, we all know that efficiency doesn’t always lead to all things nice and rosy…
My company’s fave buzzword was “family”. Once I saw how they treated their family I thought “Manson”.
Let’s master BATE all over the emirates!
I had to say it or else i would’ve passed out
If you do it too much you surely will pass out.