Arsene Wenger believes it is too early to judge England's Champions League sides because they always improve during the competition’s winter break.
Arsenal occupy sixth place after a mixed start to their Premier League season but they do not have to play in Europe again until February.
Wenger feels this break from travelling will see the Champions League sides improve domestically as their fixture lists become less congested.
"People don't [consider] that you can go away to Turkey on Wednesday night and then Sunderland on Saturday morning"
Arsene Wenger
“It always happens,” the manager said. “People don't [consider] that you can go away to Turkey on Wednesday night and then Sunderland on Saturday morning, then after you lose the game everybody says 'what a scandal that is!’.
“Look at some teams who qualified surprisingly for the Europa League. They play the Europa League and the year after they nearly go down.
“Everybody is now on the same schedule. For example when we lost at Stoke you can say we can send a complete reserve team to Galatasaray but if you lose again you face a storm, so at least you have to go there with a chance to win the game.
“You want to win your games. We still had a chance if Dortmund lost their game to be top of the group.”
Copyright 2024 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.
