Arsenal defender Hector Bellerin has warned Arsene Wenger that he has a job managing both Mesut Ozil and Henrikh Mkhitaryan.
The Gunners agreed a deal to sign the Armenian international from Manchester United as part of the deal which saw Alexis Sanchez depart the club, and he marked his full debut with a hat-trick of assists.
Unfortunately a week later his weaknesses were thoroughly exposed against Tottenham Hotspur, but he may well need some time to become better accustomed with the new tactics and team-mates of Arsenal.
Our defeat at the weekend has left us seven points outside the top-four with only 11 matches remaining, but Spanish right-back Hector Bellerin believes we are still well within a shout of making the Champions League, although he insists that Wenger must figure out how to manage Ozil and Mkhitaryan.
“There are still loads of games and big teams can lose against smaller teams,” Bellerin said. “It happens every week.
‘Wenger must stop Ozil, Mkhitaryan from becoming luxury liabilities’
“We have the faith to make the top four and the Champions League next year.
“Every single competition is important. We’ve still got the Carabao Cup here at Wembley, the game against Ostersunds in the Europa League is as important as the ones in the league.
On our performance at Wembley at the weekend, Bellerin moved to claim that we struggled with luck not on our side, and we must work harder to take the game to our rivals.
“I feel like in the first half we were just waiting for things to happen, we didn’t have the initiative to go forward, to keep the ball and that’s our game and if we can’t play our game things don’t go our way so it’s something to learn from,” Bellerin conceded.
“They came [into] the second half stronger than us and it’s something we need to look at because it happens sometimes and in the games we don’t start the second half as strong as we should have and then we pay for it.
“Towards the end we had loads of chances, a lot of the ball, but there’s only 10 minutes to go and the game’s about to end.”
Can Arsenal still make the top four? Will Mkhitaryan and Ozil prove to be luxuries we cannot afford to accommodate?
Pat J