Arsène Wenger has defended his decision to start David Ospina in goal for the shock defeat to Olympiakos in the Champions League.
Wenger has been roundly criticised for putting Ospina in goal, who scored an own goal in the game, instead of Petr Cech. Arsenal lost 3-2 at home, leaving the team at the bottom of Group F.
However, Wenger insists that Petr Cech could have made the same mistake and maintained his claim of Cech having an injury niggle.
The manager was firm that he is responsible for team selection and feels he can’t take the opinions of outside parties into consideration.
He said to Arsenal.com after the game: “I make the decisions and the selections for the team and am responsible for it,”
“And I know many things that maybe you do not know and that you ignore.”
“You cannot select a team by making a poll before the game and get everybody’s opinion. Ospina played 19 games last year, kept 14 clean sheets, last week at Tottenham he had a fantastic game. No ‘keeper is mistake free. It could have happened to Cech as well, that’s part of it.”
“I don’t give you why, I do not have to sit here and give you any explanation about every decision I make. You are capable to judge what I do and I leave you to that.”
“He [Cech] had a slight alert before the game at Leicester, I didn’t want to take a gamble, but it’s not because of that that we lost the game. It’s a farce.”
Wenger blamed a lack of concentration and good defending from Olympiakos for the defeat, the manager adding: We lacked a bit of concentration,”
“We played against an Olympiakos side who defended really well, but there was a bit of bad luck as well because they had four shots on target and they scored three goals, and that happens once out of 100 games in the Champions League.”