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'Our schedule is a bit cruel'

Monday’s win over West Bromwich Albion was our fourth match in the space of 11 days.

We travel to Belarus in the Europa League on Thursday before hosting Brighton & Hove Albion on Sunday – and after our win over the Baggies, Arsène Wenger spoke to the media about our schedule, how we could line up against BATE Borisov and what the latest on Santi Cazorla is.

on Lacazette being subbed…

I took him off because he was tired. He had an opportunity to score a hat-trick but I gave him the penalty as well. So overall, what you want is to win the game and not to take any gambles because if they come back to 2-1 it can be nervy in the end. So when the guy is a bit tired and when you have Giroud on the bench, you know you might have to defend on set pieces or Giroud can score the third goal.

on whether Lacazette will stay taking penalties …

Yes, until now I gave them to him. I observed him a little bit because we work well on penalties in training and I think he took his penalty well tonight.

on the team for BATE Borisov on Thursday….

I have a decision to make and at the moment I would say that the schedule for us is a bit cruel. We played tonight, we play in BATE Borisov on Thursday night and play Sunday at 12 o’clock here. When you look at the schedule over the weekend I think there was some room for us to be scheduled differently, but we have to accept it and we want to go to Borisov with a good team. I will go with a team of senior players and certainly with a young bench.

on talking to the Premier League about fixtures…

There is no need to talk to the Premier League about that because it’s the television that decides, but, for example, yesterday Brighton v Newcastle could have been played on television, tonight or they could have played yesterday. So for us the time is very short, but television decides and I don’t complain about that. But what I want to say about my team selection is that it has an impact for me for the Thursday and for the Sunday game, because we have another home game and it’s very important we have a strong record at home.

on Santi Cazorla's return…

It won't be before Christmas. The first signs are positive, but still he has not played for one and a half years. He is not in full training yet, he needs a few games with the reserve team, so I think if all goes well, it will be after Christmas.

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