Wenger On Arsenal Changes: “It Didn’t Work”

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger is confident his side can soon recover from another Champions League away performance to forget after seeing striker Olivier Giroud sent off in a 2-1 defeat at Dinamo Zagreb.

“We could have been two or three nil up in the first 20 minutes”.

The former Germany worldwide said: “Petr is one of the greatest goalkeepers ever, so I think that was a really good purchase by Arsenal“. Their game against Chelsea is followed by a trip next weekend to Leicester City, who are now second in the table, built on the back of some brilliant results in the league.

Zagreb then made it 2-0 shortly after the break when Fernandez got ahead of Laurent Koscielny to head home from a corner to leave us with a mountain to climb. Dinamo stopped us [unfairly] in situations without being punished – counter-attacks where we had to play 10 against 11 in one half, very strong situations.

Arsenal’s hopes to find a way back into the game came through a consolation goal from Theo Walcott 12 minutes from time, but Dinamo managed to hold on to their lead.

Wenger however, refused to criticise the centre forward, preferring instead to train his guns on the referee.

Wenger insisted Romanian referee Ovidiu Hategan was harsh in flashing the second yellow card. It has to be on objective, a foul on goal. “We’re not good enough to do that what we did tonight”, the club’s second-highest goalscorer told BT Sport.

“It’s hard because we had a lot of the ball and we had early chances”.

“We were not at our best but nor was the referee”.

“I don’t believe those who came in had a bad game, but I will have to analyse that well”. “We’ve still got a long Champions League run”, he said. It is nothing new.

Captain Mikel Arteta, recalled in a defensive midfield role, believes Arsenal cannot use squad rotation as an excuse for failing to beat a team which had not won in the Champions League since 1999 and never progressed from the group stages.