ARSENAL will play three games in the space of seven days ahead of the North London derby after reaching the Carabao Cup final.
The Gunners booked their spot in the final last night when they edged past Chelsea 1-0 to earn a 4-2 aggregate victory over their London rivals.
Mikel Arteta‘s side will take to the Wembley stage on March 22 to try and get their hands on the first piece of silverware of the season.
But that fixture has caused issues elsewhere for Arsenal, with rearrangements now meaning they face a nightmare schedule ahead of a crucial North London derby in the Premier League.
Arsenal were due to travel to play Wolves at 3pm on March 21, but that game has now been switched to February 18 in order to accommodate for the Carabao Cup final.
That means Arteta’s players face a gruelling stretch before their visit to bitter rivals Tottenham on February 22.
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First they travel down the road to Brentford on February 12, before hosting Wigan three days later and then making the trip to Molineux for an 8pm kick-off against Wolves on February 18.
Arsenal will have just three days to recover from that brutal run of fixtures before playing Tottenham away.
By comparison, Spurs will have a 12-day rest ahead of the derby clash – with their last fixture coming against Newcastle on February 10.
Arteta has already urged the Premier League to expand the matchday squad size to allow him to rotate his team even more due to hectic schedules this season.
The Arsenal boss said: “Hopefully, the Premier League next season, instead of 18 outfield players [in the squad], it will be 20.
“I beg them from here, [to make it] like it is in the Champions League, because it’s much better to manage the squad, to maintain the value of the players, to maintain the mental health of the players, because nobody wants to be out of the squad.
“I beg them that if we can, between all of us, help us on that, we can deal with hotels, travel and all that, and that will be very, very helpful for everybody, because that’s the worst thing when you need to leave somebody [out].”
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