Arsenal legend slams Arsene Wenger’s decision to rest Petr Cech

Olympiakos, whose 12 previous visits to England since 1965 all ended in defeat, scored as many goals in this match as they had managed in the last 50 years in England, and have three points along with Dinamo, who were beaten 5-0 at Bayern.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger turned on the media on Friday morning, blasting their continued criticism of him and and his team as “very, very, very, very boring”.

Arsenal players were said to be surprised about the selection of David Ospina ahead of Petr Cech for the midweek Champions League defeat to Olympiacos, according to the Daily Telegraph. He was unusually curt with his answers.

“I don’t have to give you an explanation about every decision I make”.

To another question about Ospina, Wenger added: “If you watched really the game (against Olympiakos) and you come to the conclusion we lost because of Ospina I question your knowledge in football”.

“Goalkeepers don’t move, so why rest them?” said Rio Ferdinand on BT Sport.

“We have lost the game because we didn’t defend well, yes the goalkeeper made a mistake, but we could still have won the game in spite of that”.

Wenger was then asked about his feisty press conference on Tuesday night when he insisted he should not be questioned on his selection as there were things journalists did not know.

Arsenal will be up against Manchester United in their next league fixture this Sunday at the Emirates Stadium and Cech is likely to get his spot in the first team back for the clash. “You are capable to judge and I leave you to that”. Why not start with Petr Cech simply because of the experience he’s got? “I felt we were a bit exposed”.

After Arsenal’s dismal performance yesterday in the Champions League, Philippe Auclair joined Ger, Joe and Emmet Malone on Wednesday’s night Football Show to dissect just what went wrong. “Why English clubs don’t play their best team beats me”, Merson told Sky Sports. They face back-to-back games with Bayern Munich having already lost their opening two games.

Centre-back Laurent Koscielny was forced off in the second half against Olympiacos after looking to have picked up a hamstring injury while making a slide tackle, so will be assessed.

Arsène Wenger had substituted the defensive midfielder Francis Coquelin for the more attack-minded Aaron Ramsey on the hour and Mertesacker suggested there had been a rush of blood and a lack of balance after Sánchez’s equaliser.

“Whichever team comes here to win needs to know how to suffer, to put up with the pressure and I think that was one of the key features here today”, he said.