Cup offers way out of Wenger´s woes

Arsene Wenger may still talk up his Arsenal side's title prospects but the manager knows the FA Cup third round tie with Plymouth Argyle is almost as important for the Gunners as the Premier League.

Wenger brought the curtain down on a miserable year by confidently declaring his current side to be on the verge of greatness.

That may look wildly optimistic after a year that began badly with the horrific leg-break suffered by Eduardo da Silva and was later marred by the extraordinary in-fighting that led to William Gallas being stripped of the captaincy and further long-term injuries to Theo Walcott and Cesc Fabregas.

With Matthieu Flamini, Alexander Hleb and Gilberto Silva all having left in the pre-season without being adequately replaced, it seems as if Arsenal are even further away from ending a three-season long trophy drought than they were this time last year.

Wenger knows he needs to land silverware quickly if he is to restore the culture of winning to a club whose position among the Premier League's elite now looks shaky.

And while he insists his side can still recover the ten-point deficit on league leaders Liverpool, Arsenal's most realistic chance of domestic success this season lies in the FA Cup where Plymouth, of the second-tier Championship, are unlikely to halt their passage into the fourth round.

That would at least take Arsenal one step nearer a trophy and revive a reputation which their French boss believes has been unfairly maligned.

“I'm disappointed that the team is not getting the praise or the respect it deserves at the moment, but we have to keep going,” the manager said.

“We will keep going with this spirit and we will turn people around.

“I'm convinced that we are on the right track. We are not missing 10 per cent, we are missing one or two per cent. We can get that one or two per cent easily and then we can dominate the league.

“My hopes and aims for 2009 are to support this team. I believe strongly in this team and if they get the support I think they will be rewarded in 2009 because they deserve it.”

Wenger's confidence may turn out to be well-placed but the admission by Manuel Almunia that the current Arsenal side is still some way short of matching the feats of their more successful predecessors injects a more sober note into the end of year assessment ahead of the Plymouth tie.

The Spanish goalkeeper, who has captained the side in the absence of Fabregas, said: “We have shown good character, but we still have a little more to go to find the real Arsenal.

“The main thing is to look for our identity, our way, our character that gave this club all their titles and trophies. For whatever reason we lost our way, our character and the way we play on the pitch. We need to re-find our spirit and our desire to win games.”

Plymouth's task at the Emirates Stadium appears daunting enough even without the suspension of defender David McNamee, recently sent-off against Cardiff.

They will be encouraged, however, by the news that top scorer Paul Gallagher will remain at the club until the end of the season after Blackburn Rovers agreed to extend the forward's loan spell.