In his whole 21 years at Arsenal, Arsene Wenger has never seen his side beaten in the Third Round of the FA Cup before and although he feels very ‘hurt’ by the result, he admits that the team he picked were simply not as good as Nottingham Forest today. “I am very disappointed by our performance because Nottingham Forest were the better team out there, the most dangerous and won many challenges,” he said on Arsenal.com.
“We were not at the level and that’s it. People think maybe subconsciously that the Championship will be easier, but it’s more difficult because many of these players have been in academies, they are prepared physically and they are at the level. I can congratulate Nottingham Forest because they were the better team tonight.
“It hurts very much. I’m very, very disappointed because I love the cup competitions and unfortunately you jump out of the train now – you cannot come back on it and we have to focus on our next game.”
And as we move on to the next game, we see we are going to play Antonio Conte’s Chelsea side in the first leg of the League Cup semi-final on Wednesday at Stamford Bridge. Wenger has never won the lesser competition but right now he sounds like he is going to try and win this one to make up for today’s defeat.
“It’s the semi-final of the League Cup and we have to absolutely turn up to it.”
I have a feeling that Wenger will be sending a strong team to the Bridge, but with our awful away form and the depressing aspects of today’s game, it is not going to be an easy matter to pick the players up and get them ready to fight again. We can only hope for the best but it is difficult not to be very worried at this point. …
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