London: Arsene Wenger has said he might have to use the loan market if his full-back crisis doesn’t ease out soon. The Arsenal manager is already without Bacary Sagna, Andre Santos and Carl Jenkinson, whilst Kieran Gibbs has had a setback when a return to the first-team was around the corner.
With Johan Djourou also out, it means Ignasi Miquel or Sebastien Squillaci could be forced to fill in to help out against Aston Villa on Wednesday.
The Arsenal boss said on Tuesday that Sagna had began to run again following his broken leg in October, but he revealed that if Gibbs was to be out for an extended period of time, it would force him to dip into the loan market during the January transfer window.
"He [Gibbs] will see a specialist again and if something happens there that he has had a real setback, then we could [look at loans], possibly, yes," Wenger told reporters.
"That's what we are doing. We are starting to look at players if Gibbs is not back."
Arsenal have been playing with four centre-backs across the back in the past couple of games against Everton and Manchester City in order to cope with their injury crisis.
But Wenger believes playing the likes of Thomas Vermaelen on the flanks instead of in the centre is detrimental to the team as they cannot produce as much going forward as compared to the specialist full-backs.
"No solution will be ideal because whatever we do, two players will have to play out of position," he added.
"We have centre-backs who do not like to play at full-back and we are a team who likes to go forward through the full-backs, so they are in a position where they have to produce different games."
"That is much more demanding physically. That exposes us even more to injuries."
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