Arsenal goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny has blamed the festive fixture list for the Gunners’ dropped points of late.

 

Arsene Wenger’s men slipped out of the top four recently and their festive run included a draw with Wolverhampton Wanderers, narrowly beating QPR 1-0 and then losing away to Fulham on Monday.

 

But it is not just Arsenal who have found the going tough, with Manchester City, Manchester United and Chelsea all suffering shock defeats over the Christmas period.

 

And for Arsenal’s Polish shot-stopper, there is but one explanation.

 

"The fixtures come thick and fast and players get tired and these kinds of results can happen", Szczesny told Arsenal’s official site.

 

"We were hoping to take advantage of that but we failed to do so.

 

"It was very confusing [against Fulham] because for 85 minutes I thought we defended really well with 11 men and they never looked like scoring.

 

"Then when we had the ten men they put a lot of pressure on us and they looked very dangerous.

 

"We played 48 hours before and we went down to ten men and so there were probably some tired legs.

 

"I think we should still have kept the concentration, kept the focus and we would have been fine. We are disappointed with the result but hopefully we can recover as soon as possible."

 

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