Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger was left to count the cost of a damaging night in the Capital One Cup as Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Theo Walcott will be sent for scans on injuries picked up in the 3-0 defeat at Sheffield Wednesday.
Both England internationals hobbled off in the opening 20 minutes at Hillsborough, Oxlade-Chamberlain with a hamstring problem and his replacement Walcott due to a calf problem, and the extent of the injuries will not be determined until they have a scan within the next 48 hours.
In previous seasons Wenger has used the League Cup as an opportunity to give some playing time to young players who are on the fringes of the first tea. But Wenger knows he needs to win at least one trophy this season and he named a very experienced side that included Petr Cech, Mathieu Debuchy, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Olivier Giroud in his starting XI. And now the Arsenal boss is truing playing so many big names, despite the poor performance in South Yorkshire.
“The injuries are two muscular injuries, how big the damage is I don’t know,” Wenger said.
“We have to make scans and we have to wait 48 hours for the scan. It’s was a bad night at the office for us. We lost the two players and after that we were not good enough.
“I have to manage the workload of the players and at the end of the day I still think I maybe brought too many experienced players here.
“We lost two players and after that I had Gabriel (Paulista) and (Nacho) Monreal on the bench but I couldn’t bring them on because I couldn’t afford to lose any more players.
“I am concerned, we have a big game on Saturday (against Swansea), we have Bayern in the Champions League coming up, already now we are short.
“To lose two players tonight is damaging for us, two offensive players. Ideally we would have loved to win, but with the squad we have got now, we cannot keep in all the competitions.”