Wenger not able to celebrate

Boss has mixed emotions after crucial win but bad injury to Ramsey

Last updated: 28th February 2010   Subscribe to RSS Feed

Wenger not able to celebrate

Wenger: Mixed emotions

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Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger could not celebrate his side's 3-1 win at Stoke after Aaron Ramsey suffered a horrific injury.

The 19-year-old midfielder was injured midway in the second half after a challenge by Ryan Shawcross, who was sent off and left the pitch in tears.

Earlier, Danny Pugh had put the home side ahead in the eighth minute before a Nicklas Bendtner header, Cesc Fabregas penalty and Thomas Vermaelen tap-in sealed the win.

The vital victory sees Wenger's side reduce the gap on league leaders Chelsea to three points as the title race hots up.

But Wenger had mixed emotions afterwards, being proud of his side's efforts but also very sad over Ramsey's injury.

The Arsenal boss told Sky Sports: "I'm proud of our game because it was an unbelievable battle from the first minute on and we needed to be tough, patient and resilient to comeback and win the game.

"So I'm very proud of my team and very sad of course because of what happened to Aaron Ramsey.

Bad injury

"We know it's a bad injury. We have to transfer him to London tonight to see if he needs emergency surgery or not.

"So we have to reassess the injury. The only thing we do not know how long he will be out but it's certainly long term.

"I'm not very happy with the tackle. I just want to say we know what we are expecting, a battle everywhere, but we have now lost three players - (Abou) Diaby, Eduardo and Ramsey today, a boy of 19 years old - on horrendous tackles.

"It's always coincidence. I don't believe in coincidence when you are hit as many times as we do.

"We know what it is always to be physical against Arsenal and what questions I get in press conferences we don't fancy the physical side of it, that's what the result is."

Not acceptable

Asked if he believes that teams are over-physical against Arsenal, he replied: "I don't believe nothing. I just believe in what I see and when you see a player of that quality tonight getting out and injured like he did and in the way he did, it's not acceptable.

"Nothing to do with physical - commitment is right, but that's not right, I don't accept that."

The game was level at 1-1 when the injury occurred but Arsenal somehow regrouped and scored two late goals.

Wenger added: "We could see that the team was shocked, that for five, six minutes nothing happened in the game.

"But we will go until the end because this team is very strong mentally, united, and we'll fight in every game and we will do it for Ramsey as well because he deserves it."