Arsene Wenger accused of causing Walcott injury with warm-up fiasco

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain had to come off early and Wenger sent Walcott on to replace him against Sheffield Wednesday, only for Walcott to get injured as well.

Oxlade-Chamberlain picked up a hamstring injury after he appeared to roll over the ball awkwardly and was forced off inside five minutes.

But rather than allow the England forward to complete a full warm-up routine, Wenger appeared to gesture for him to run straight on and get involved in the match.

The allegation was made by Sky Sports' touchline reporter David Craig, who claimed that Walcott hadn't had enough time to prepare to get involved.

Walcott had to leave the field just 13 minutes later after sustaining a calf injury, and the match ended in a humiliating 3-0 defeat.

Fans on social media were not impressed with the manager's handling of the situation.

Wenger confirmed that both players had suffered muscle injuries, and that it will take 48 hours for the full extent of the damage to be known.

The Gunners boss said he had been forced to field a strong Arsenal team in the humiliating defeat due to the growing strength of the Championship.

The 66-year-old Frenchman is known to use the League Cup as a platform to breed young talent, but the Gunners started the game with 10 internationals.

However, due to injuries during the match, teenagers Glen Kamara and Alex Iwobi were joined by Ismael Bennacer to form Arsenal's midfield for most of the game.

The trio failed to deal with the intensity and relentless nature of Sheffield Wednesday who dominated proceedings.

"The level was too high for the young players. They are not ready to play at this level," Wenger told reporters.

"There are many good players in the Championship and to play young players against Championship players is very difficult because the level has gone up.

"If you play with not a lot of experience, you don't have a chance to win the game."

Wenger rued the injuries as well as the result.

"It was a bad night at the office. We lost the two players and after that, we were not good enough" he said.

"But we have a big game on Saturday (against Swansea), a game at Bayern coming up and already we are short, so to lose two offensive players tonight is damaging for us."

We're not totally convinced by all this. Yes, given Walcott's horrendous injury record you'd think safety first would be the best policy. But considering that he was involved in the pre-match warm-up, would he really have needed to go through his full routine again just five minutes after kick-off? Walcott has shown himself perfectly capable of getting injured time and time again regardless of circumstances - this is almost certainly just more bad luck.