ARSENE Wenger believes Wanderers will struggle to maintain their sensational start to the season unless they start to take the initiative and increase their share of possession.

The Arsenal boss, desperately disappointed to see his star-studded Gunners thwarted at Highbury on Saturday, doubts whether the pacemakers can stay the distance and reckons home games against lesser teams could be their undoing.

"I don't think they will be in the top four," he suggested, "but it's very, very difficult to say.

"They only have 35 per cent of the the possession and I can't see them lasting the whole of the season like that.

"It's difficult when in all your games you only have 32 to 35 per cent possession and I don't think that can last through the campaign.

"They believe they can do it but they'll have more and more problems at home against the smaller teams."

Wenger had no hesitation in pointing the finger at his defence for costing Arsenal the victory that would have seen them leapfrog Wanderers at the top of the table.

"We threw two points away," the Gunners' chief moaned, "but considering the way we defended when we went 1-0 up, it's not surprising.

"We defended very badly, the players didn't find the right positions on the field when we were 1-0 up. We were not right at the back. We were not outnumbered when they scored the goal but the way we conceded it disappointed me. There was one just before when David (Seaman) made a good save.

"That's why I feel we were guilty of losing the two points."

The softly-spoken Frenchman added: "I'm not disappointed we've had problems to score - that's always difficult when you are playing against 10 men. I would have preferred them to have stayed with 11. In fact I was not pleased with the sending off, I would have preferred him (Gardner) not to have touched Dennis (Bergkamp) because 90 per cent it would have been a goal."

Plagued by injuries, which saw skipper Tony Adams pressed into service despite still being in considerable pain with his foot injury, Wenger cited the strains of the midweek Champions League game against Schalke as having an effect on his team's well-being.

"We had a very demanding game on Wednesday night," he explained. "We tried, we wanted to score but if you're not fresh I can understand that it's difficult to score ... it's much more difficult to understand how naive we were when we were 1-0 up.

"Tony Adams was tired. We should have been much more cautious as a unit."