Rob Holding in action during the 4-3 win over Leicester (Getty)

The fragility of Arsenal’s defence has been further exposed after Arsene Wenger revealed why he dropped Rob Holding at the weekend.

The Gunners have been forced to deal with some absentees at the back in their first two games of the season. Laurent Koscielny has been suspended for both games while Per Mertesacker and Shkodran Mustafi were not fit for the opener with Leicester.

Nacho Monreal has played as the central player in a back three while right-sided defender Hector Bellerin was used on the left against Stoke on Saturday.

It’s coincided with some shoddy defensive displays and the concession of four goals.

Wenger watched his side lose 1-0 to Stoke on Saturday (Getty)

Three of those came in the 4-3 opening weekend win over Leicester, a game which featured youngster Rob Holding.

He was dropped for the trip to Stoke, with Wenger revealing that his confidence had been hit by the performance against Leicester.

‘We conceded three last week so I changed a bit because Mustafi came back and Holding had lost a little bit of confidence,’ revealed the Arsenal manager.

Holding didn’t even make the bench for Stoke (Getty)

While admitting that Stoke’s goal was a result of poor defending, Wenger said that the offensive players had to take responsibility for Saturday’s defeat as well.

‘In pre-season, centrally [in midfield], we did quite well. When you lose a game, you lose a game, but we didn’t lose against Stoke only because of bad defending on the ball.

‘When you have the number of chances we had away from home and you don’t score, you can always complain about the offence and defence.

‘We’ve lost one game so I can understand [negativity], but overall I believe that there were a lot of positives in the game. We created many chances, we had great domination, but unfortunately we dropped three points.’

Arsenal 2017/18 fixtures

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The result ended a wave of confidence that had been building following a Community Shield win over Chelsea and victory over Leicester. The Gunners will be desperate to get that feeling back next weekend, however it won’t be easy with Liverpool their next opponents.

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