My youngsters couldn’t handle this cup mission
ARSENE WENGER defended his decision to rest so many experienced players but admitted his starlets had not been up to a raucous night at Hillsborough. Wenger accused his young players of being weak and ‘naive’ but also claimed he should have rested more first-team regulars after Theo Walcott and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain were hit by injuries. ‘The occasion was too much for the young players,’ said Wenger. ‘They were not ready to play at this level, none of them. Two of the goals were from set-pieces. We were very naive. We had a lot of the ball but didn’t make a lot. We were too short in midfield. ‘I am concerned because we have a big game on Saturday at Swansea and the Champions League at Bayern Munich coming up, and already we are short. To lose two offensive players is damaging for us. Maybe too many experienced players played here. We lost two and once I lost them, I didn’t bring on others because we couldn’t afford to lose more.’ Sheffield Wednesday boss Carlos Carvalhal hailed his players. ‘It is a big gap,’ he said. ‘We know Arsenal are nine times better than us. We had to fight and run. We had a strategy and on the pitch for 96 minutes we were better than Arsenal.’ Wednesday are now unbeaten in nine games in all competitions and through to the Capital One Cup quarter-finals but Carvalhal is refusing to get carried away. ‘Step by step,’ he said. ‘We belong to the Championship, we’re not in the Premier League so we’ll be the outsiders in this competition because all the teams in this moment are from the Premier League. We’ll do our best game by game.’