Arsene Wenger Insists He's Ready to Pay the Price With Injuries as He Targets Multiple Trophies

Arsene Wenger has hit out at suggestions from some of his fellow Premier League managers that the Carabao Cup is a waste of their time, saying that the pressures of modern football mean that clubs are best served doing their best to win every competition on the calendar. 

The League Cup remains the one domestic competition that Wenger has yet to win, with the Gunners' last triumph in the competition coming back in 1993, but the Frenchman insisted that he would go into every game looking to progress to the next round. 

Speaking ahead of a busy week of games, which sees his side play on Monday, Thursday and Sunday, he said: “You cannot sacrifice deliberately any competition with the pressure that every club is under now.”

Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola both hit out at the lesser of England's two cup competitions in midweek after their sides progressed to the round of 16 last week with wins over Burton and West Brom respectively, with the latter calling it a 'waste of energy'.

Wenger admitted that going deep in cup competitions will put a strain on even the deepest squad, particularly with the latter stages coming in early 2018 when the FA Cup is added to the calendar for the top sides - but indicated that he would be willing to take the risk in order to secure silverware. 

“You know that you could pay the price sometimes for it," he said, "because you know that if you go further in the League Cup, at some stage you play in the semi-final - home and away in January. [So] you have the FA Cup, the Premier League and sometimes you lose players in these competitions.”