Wenger defends selection calls as Gunners crash out

ARSENE WENGER became the latest Premier League manager to defend his right to field a weakened team but surely this surprise FA Cup defeat will be rendered irrelevant if he can deliver a first Premier League title in six seasons.

Wenger’s burning desire to start filling up the Emirates trophy cabinet is threatening to extend to another campaign after this premature exit but his decision to field a relatively inexperienced team at the bearpit of the Britannia Stadium was purely designed to protect his mission in the league.

The urbane Frenchman deserves immense credit for masterminding a revival in the domestic campaign, just a matter of weeks after an insipid home defeat to Chelsea, and his rotation policy was unavoidable as he prepares for a quartet of crunch encounters, starting at Aston Villa on Wednesday night.

Following that trip to the Midlands are daunting games against Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool and after such a challenging string of fixtures, Wenger will be acutely aware how genuine his chances of lifting a title for the first time since the 2003/04 season really are.

It begs the question as to whether Alex Ferguson’s influence on the Premier League even stretches to the fixture computer.

Yet this second successive defeat in Staffordshire will be largely forgotten if Wenger succeeds in May. That said, he still had to face awkward questions on why relative unknowns such as Jay Emmanuel-Thomas, Craig Eastmond and Francis Coquelin were given rare outings in such a high pressure game.

The one highlight was the second debut of new signing Sol Campbell, who will have provided Wenger with a crumb of comfort as their FA Cup campaign disappeared into dust.

“I wanted to win this game and I don’t regret the team I picked, I did not have much choice,” said Wenger. “If you look at our schedule it’s simply that you cannot always play with the same XI.

“If you rotate and you don’t win it’s your fault. I can only stand up and say that’s the team that I picked. It’s unfortunate but we had 10 injuries and we’re going into a period where we cannot rotate a lot in the big games.

“We’ve got to focus on those games because we are in an interesting position. We didn’t want to go out the competition.”

Before the game, Wenger had claimed that the whole of football was against Arsenal, and this unwittingly gave Stoke the invitation to prove it.

Stoke were already harbouring a sense of revenge. It had been billed as the Battle of the Britannia a little over a year ago, when Arsenal emerged from Stoke with their noses bloodied after a 2-1 defeat, but the two clubs have a colourful history stretching much further back.

While last season’s bruising encounter created controversy, Stoke City supporters of an older persuasion are probably still harbouring the painful memories of 1971 and 1972 when Arsenal condemned the Potters to defeat in both FA Cup semi-finals.

The scars still remain but must now be healing. It took only 70 seconds for Tony Pulis’ street fighters to puncture the fragile confidence of Arsenal goalkeeper Lukas Fabianski. Rory Delap’s gargantuan throw unnerved the Pole and Ricardo Fuller stole in to find the corner with a header.

Arsenal did eventually settle and finally levelled in the 42nd minute through Denilson. Cesc Fabregas played a free kick outside the box across to the Brazilian midfielder and he arrowed a low drive past Thomas Sorensen, with the aid of a slight deflection off Dean Whitehead.

The second half saw Stoke dominant, with Fabianski under siege for most of the 45 minutes from an aerial bombardment. Wenger simply had to make changes and with 22 minutes remaining introduced Andrei Arshavin, Eduardo and Aaron Ramsey in a desperate bid to avoid a replay.

He did avoid one, though not in the way he wanted. Mamady Sidibe’s excellent work down the right ended in an inch perfect cross for Fuller to nod past a stranded Fabianski. Visibly stunned, Arsenal’s exit was confirmed when the excellent Matthew Etherington crossed for Whitehead to put the icing on the cake with his first goal for the club.

A jubilant Pulis said: “Have we got the Indian sign over Arsenal? Well I hope so because we’ve got to play them again in the league.”

REFEREE: Martin Atkinson (Yorkshire): The official must have expected a busier afternoon before the game but was relatively untroubled.

MATCH RATING: ***. Stoke may be a Premier League team but this still had the feel of a giant-killing as Arsenal were deservedly dumped out of the competition.