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Wenger - Fixture congestion no excuse

Arsene Wenger will not use the current fixture congestion as an excuse if his side slip up at Manchester City on Saturday.

The Arsenal squad only arrived back from Naples in the early hours of Thursday morning and face a trip to Etihad Stadium for Saturday's lunchtime kick-off.

It is not an ideal situation for Wenger, but he insists his side can cope with the demands of the calendar.

"On the physical front and tactical front you cannot do a lot. The base is that it is all targeted on recovery"

Arsene Wenger

"To be completely honest, if you had given me the opportunity to do it I would not have done it like that, but I do not complain," Wenger said. "That is not an excuse for us at all, we have the fixtures we have.

"It is another opportunity to show we have the mental strength to deal with it."

The Frenchman also revealed the difficulties of preparing his side with so little time in-between games, but denied that his squad is showing any signs of fatigue.

"We do mostly recovery [sessions] when you play Wednesday night and Saturday morning," he said. "On the physical front and tactical front you cannot do a lot. The base is that it is all targeted on recovery.

“[Medical analysis] is quite sophisticated now and we don't see any signs [of fatigue]. The signs we see on the players who are a bit [tired], I rest them."

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