Wenger - Santi out until March

Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has revealed that it is unlikely Spanish midfielder Santi Cazorla will return to action before March.

The 30-year-old reportedly injured his knee ligaments against Norwich City in similar fashion to that of Francis Coquelin’s suffered just a week before and Wenger has claimed that the former Real Oviedo man will not return before March.

I don’t know, honestly. Alexis is a hamstring [injury] but I don’t know how long it will take, it is usually a quick one to recover. Cazorla we don’t know until he sees a specialist. There is no news on that. It is possible [he will return in March].

Wenger did, however, reveal that Laurent Koscielny and Theo Walcott would likely be returning to the matchday squad, given that any tests come back positive.

The players injured in the last two weeks will not play tomorrow and who is back maybe in the squad could be Laurent Koscielny and Theo Walcott. That will be a decision tomorrow morning.

The Gunners boss was then questioned on whether Arsenal are the most injury-prone team in the Premier League, Wenger brushed the claim off.

I don’t know… for example with these injuries you count Abou Diaby who was injured a lot here and has gone to Marseille and still does not play. I believe that is a debate that I will leave to specialists but… it is not difficult to compare our injuries across Europe with all the leagues and I don’t think we have more injuries than everybody.

With the medical team facing scrutiny from a number of onlookers, Wenger backed them and claimed they cannot prevent ‘human beings from being human beings’.

I would like to invite you to see one day. We have plenty of people. When arrived here it was me, my two assistants and Gary Lewin, but today you have a team around you. That has changed and I think that has changed everywhere. It is much more sophisticated, much more scientific, but human beings are still human beings.

Moving on to Alexis Sanchez, the Frenchman admitted that having run a number of tests on his fitness and injury status, it was nothing more than ‘unlucky’ that the Chilean strained his hamstring.

We are quite sophisticated in testing our players. I had a chat with Alexis after his injury and he was adamant he felt perfect before the game because we tested his strength, stretching, all the signs we test every week were perfect. There was no obvious sign or alert before the game – it happened, do I have to take the blame? I do, but there was not an obvious mistake to select him before the game.

It happens in extreme circumstances. If you ask me when you play a cup final, you don’t listen too much to the players because they are all ‘fit’! But in normal situations, sometimes you have to get the feeling from the player because at the end of the day you have to trust them.