Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has admitted that he will take responsibility for Konstantinos Mavropanos’ poor performance against Leicester on Wednesday.
The centre-back was sent off 15 minutes into the game and the outgoing manager admits that he should never have picked the 20-year-old Greek.
Arsenal were already a goal down when he was dismissed, and Claude Puel’s side went on to win 3-1 at the King Power Stadium.
The veteran Frenchman has confessed that he will shoulder the blame for Mavropanos’ dismissal.
“I don’t think he had recovered,” he said. “He was a bit surprised by the pace of the game at the start, because he had not completely recovered.
“I believe when games are very close, it takes so much mental energy at the start of your career that it takes sometimes a bit longer to recover.
“I had a long thought about playing him straight away again or not. Sometimes you think: ‘OK, it’s going well for him, keep him in.’”
Mavropanos will be suspended for Sunday’s encounter against Huddersfield, which will be Wenger’s last in charge of Arsenal after close to 22 years at the helm.
