Wenger seeks cure for travel sickness

ARSENE WENGER admitted Arsenal are suffering a virtual crisis in their Premiership away form as he revealed his “shock” at the defeat at Bolton which has undermined their title hopes.

However, while insisting that the weekend setback was an “accident”, he is backing his squad to rediscover the physical power needed to get their title bid back on track at Newcastle on Saturday.

Wenger will rest several leading players, including Gilberto Silva, Freddie Ljungberg, Robert Pires and Jens Lehmann, in tonight’s Champions League final group tie against Ajax, with nothing at stake after already sealing top spot.

Sol Campbell and Dennis Bergkamp will also be given time to recover from knocks, while Pascal Cygan’s groin problem may be protected as Wenger looks to recover from such a shock.

Having already dropped 16 points out of a possible 21 away in the league, the Gunners cannot afford any more lame displays, either in the Premiership or in the knock-out stages of the Champions League.

Asked if their away form constituted a crisis, with Chelsea now 14 points clear after just one game more, Wenger admitted: “If you want us to have an absolute crisis, we’ll take it.

“It is a deficit in results away from home, that is how I call it.”

He added: “It was a shock as we were on a good run and had just won at Wigan, but we were confronted with a very direct game at Bolton and couldn’t win the decisive challenges.

“Bolton dominated us in areas where you need to be strong if you want to win the championship. We need to redress that situation.”

Wenger accepts teams will otherwise simply be more physical to unsettle the Gunners but rejected two charges being levelled against his side - that they are too soft and that they badly miss Patrick Vieira.

He insisted: “I don’t agree we’re going soft away from home for one simple reason. We were unbeaten away for two seasons on the trot and we played some games in the north, you know.

“People also say we lost because we sold Vieira but Vieira played last year at Bolton and we lost 1-0 as well.

“I’ll never say you don’t miss a player like Vieira but what is important is you have to move on and play with the players we have as well as we can and I think this team has the potential to win the championship.

“We lost other away games at Chelsea, Middlesbrough and West Brom because it was after an international week where we had many players away and because we had many big injuries at the start of the season.

“I feel this game was a bit different - an accident like that can happen in the season. Add it to the others and it looks like there is a consistency there. But in my opinion it is not.”

Wenger will use tonight’s game to look at some of his promising young players, including Quincy Owusu-Abeyie, Sebastian Larsson, Emmanuel Eboue and Philippe Senderos, while Alexander Hleb returns after long-term injury.