Wenger rues playing Mavropanos ahead of Mustafi

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Kolkata, May 11: Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger admitted he was wrong to play Konstantinos Mavropanos as a central defender for the Premier League match against Leicester City on Wednesday.

The 20-year-old had made his Arsenal debut against Manchester United.

He did reasonably well in that match and was again in the starting line-up for the game against Burnley where also he impressed.

Back-to-back good performances earned Mavropanos a place in the starting XI against Leicester. But he was sent off as early the 15th minute in the 1-3 defeat to Leicester.

After the loss, Wenger admitted that he had committed a big mistake by choosing the Greek ahead of Shkodran Mustafi.

Mavropanos is very young and completely new to Premier League. He needs to develop his game. In the match against Leicester, he was the last man in defence when he tackled the rival attacker, which resulted in him receiving a straight red card.

It proved costly for the Gunners, as they had to play the rest of the 75 minutes with just ten men on the field.

Wenger had to change his strategy and had to take Danny Welbeck off to give Mustafi a chance.

Arsenal were already one goal down in the match. They were not able to make a come back despite Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang drawing them level.

Against Huddersfield Town, on Sunday (May 13), Wenger will be desperate to get a win as it will be his final match of his 22-year-long managerial career at Arsenal.