Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger insists his youthful defence is not the reason for his side's defeat on Tuesday night.
A Gunners side fielding a back four of Hector Bellerin, Calum Chambers, Isaac Hayden and Francis Coquelin were beaten 2-1 at home by Southampton in the Capital One Cup third round but Wenger has made it clear that they are not to be blamed for the shortcoming.
Arsenal lead after 14 minutes following Alexis Sanchez's 25-yard free-kick but conceded a penalty six minutes later, which was slotted home by Dusan Tadic, before Nathaniel Clyne unleashed a thunderous 30-yard strike five minutes before the break.
In the wake of the defeat, Wenger admitted he had a plethora of injuries to senior players but was full of praise for his inexperienced back-line who performed admirably in front of Gunners debutant David Ospina who was signed from Nice in the summer.
"We are a bit short, yes, because of the injuries we have," Wenger said.
"You sit there and think: (Kieran) Gibbs had a little hamstring problem and we could not play him, (Per) Mertesacker is a bit on the edge, and then we have no choice.
"I think if we lost the game tonight, it's not because of Hayden, not because of Chambers and not because of Coquelin. You have to be realistic.
"I don't want to go into any individual assessment, it's always very easy after a defeat. We gave a lot, I cannot fault the spirit, the attitude.
"The first reason for our defeat is the quality of our opponent and the performance of our opponent. And the fact that we couldn't score. We scored on a free-kick, apart from that we couldn't score.
"The amount of possession we had second half, if you play at home with that much possession, you have to score."
