Arsene Wenger admits he is unsure whether to continue with his current rotation policy of tinkering with his starting XI for domestic cup games after Arsenal scraped into the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup.
The Gunners boss made 11 changes to his side from the one that defeated Newcastle 1-0 at the weekend as the north London outfit ground out a 1-0 win over London rivals West Ham.
Progression to the semi-final of the Carabao Cup means Arsenal will now play 10 games between Friday’s welcome of Liverpool and the end of January, including seven Premier League matches and one FA Cup outing.
With such a hectic run of matches, Wenger admits he is unsure now whether to continue with his current rotation policy with the games now coming thick and fast.
“When you look at our fixtures in January and February, you cannot imagine that you play always with the same players in every single game,” the Arsenal boss said after the 1-0 win over West Ham.
“Will I change from Premier League game to Premier League game, or in the Carabao Cup, I don’t know yet. I have to look at the fixtures to see what I do.”
Olivier Giroud and Francis Coquelin both limped off in the second half of Tuesday’s win over West Ham, with Wenger suggesting that the former will miss the frantic run of matches over the coming weeks.
When pressed on whether Giroud, who sustained a hamstring issue, will be out for the festive period, Wenger said: “It looks like that. Nowadays you do the scan 48 hours after the injury, so that will happen on Thursday, then we have a precise idea of what kind of grade his hamstring is.”
“When you listen to him, the pain is quite big, but the grade is not always linked with the intensity of the pain.”
