Published: 30 November, 2015
By STEVE BARNETT

Premier League
NORWICH 1, ARSENAL 1

ARSENE Wenger has defended his decision to start Alexis Sanchez in Sunday's 1-1 draw with Norwich after the Chilean limped out of the action with a suspected hamstring injury.

The Arsenal boss started his attacking star despite the fact that he had previously revealed Sanchez had suffered “a little hamstring alarm” after scoring twice in Tuesday's 3-0 Champions League win over Dinamo Zagreb. It's a decision that backfired as Sanchez limped out of the 1-1 draw at Carrow Road after an hour. 

“The players are there to play football and not to be rested when the press decides they need to be rested,” said Wenger. “I would have rested him but he said he was fine to play. We checked him, and when you have no force and no middle stretch in your hamstring, then there is no problem – and he had that.

“I do not know how long Sanchez will be out for but it is a big blow. We will have to assess the injury in the week. He says it is a kick on his hamstring – I fear the reality is worse than that.”

Wenger did have some good news, however, with fellow injury concerns Santi Cazorla and Laurent Koscielny expected to recover from their respective hip and knee complaints in time to face Sunderland at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday.

It was the only good news that came out of the trip to Norwich as Arsenal missed the chance to draw level on points with Manchester City at the top of the table. The Gunners were gifted the lead when John Ruddy's poor clearance allowed Sanchez to set up Mesut Ozil to open the scoring on the half-hour mark. But the visitors were pegged back just before the break by Lewis Grabban, who received Robbie Brady's defence-splitting pass, held off the challenge of Gabriel, and fired a deserved equaliser past Petr Cech.

Wenger admitted afterwards that his side had to “dig deep” to get a draw from a “below-par performance”. “It looks to me like a fair result,” he said. “The frustration is that we were 1-0 up and conceded a soft goal.

“Overall we had to dig deep. We were a bit jaded physically and did not have our usual sharpness in the final third. On top of that we lost Alexis and Koscielny and we had Cazorla playing on one leg in the second half.

“Overall it was a difficult game but at least we didn’t lose it. That’s the positive of the day. The negative, of course, is that we dropped two points.”

ARSENAL: Cech, Bellerin, Mertesacker, Koscielny (Gabriel, 11), Monreal, Flamini, Cazorla, Ramsey (Oxlade-Chamberlain, 72), Ozil, Sanchez (Campbell, 60), Giroud
Substitutes not used: Debuchy, Ospina, Chambers, Reine Adelaide
Att: 27,091