Arsène Wenger
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By Chris Harris
Arsène Wenger insists that his relationship with Fabio Capello and the Football Association will not be soured by the midweek injury to Theo Walcott.
The teenager dislocated his shoulder during an England training session ahead of their international friendly against Germany. Wenger had already questioned the value of the fixture and the Frenchman's worst fears were realised when Walcott was ruled out for three months.
That was hard for Wenger to stomach but he refused to apportion blame to the England manager or the football authorities at his pre-match press conference.
"It won't affect my relationship with them [Capello and the FA], not at all," said the Arsenal manager.
"If they had made a mistake, if we had sent Theo Walcott over there and said 'listen, don't play him or don't practise with him because he has a shoulder problem' and they practised with him and he got a dislocated shoulder I would say 'yes', but that is not the case.
"Theo played the whole game against Aston Villa and he went there [to Berlin] to play, and it happened. It is accidental. We live in a job where accidents can happen. He might have had a weakness in there or it was purely accidental because he fell on it."
Walcott is the latest in a long line of Arsenal players who have suffered an injury while on duty with their countries. Nonetheless, Wenger has no intention of following the example of rival clubs and withdrawing his stars from international squads.
"We never withdraw any player," said the Frenchman. "Our players, unless they have a big injury, we send them.
"There are sometimes cases where we send the players and they send them back. We ask [the national sides] to be cautious with them, especially in friendly games, and this usually happens with national teams, because they are not crazy."
[Thursday, November 20, 2008]
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