Arsene Wenger has admitted that Arsenal lost their cohesion during the 1-0 victory over Doncaster in the third round of the Carabao Cup.

Arsenal plodded their way to a 1-0 win over the League 1 side on Wednesday night.  It was a game the Gunners were expected to win by a far more comfortable scoreline, but ended up being a lot trickier than anyone would have liked.

Wenger has put that down to the team losing cohesion as the game went on. “I believe that we started well and in the first 25 minutes had a good pace in our game and good flow and slowly lost a bit our cohesion and our speed in our passing and decreased our level.” he said in his post-game press conference.

“And after that, I think we did the job even if we had not any more the style we want to play and the flair to kill the game off.” Arsenal did create plenty of chances in the first-half, but only managed to take one of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YcifTCm_4s

Theo Walcott latched onto Alexis’ pinpoint pass over the top and finished coolly in the 25th minute, setting up what should have been a handsome victory. However, as the game progressed, Arsenal became sloppy and were unable to sustain any meaningful pressure in the Doncaster half.

By the end of the second half, we were very much under pressure from Doncaster and had to scrap to ensure the game wasn’t forced into extra-time. Given that we had the likes of Jack Wilshere, Theo Walcott, Alexis Sanchez and Olivier Giroud out there, the performance was very disappointing.

Granted, with so many players searching for form or fitness and several playing out of position, it’s little wonder we lacked cohesion.