Injuries hit Gunners hard

Arsenal have an injury crisis ahead of Sunday’s Carling Cup final against Birmingham.

Key players Cesc Fabregas, Theo Walcott and Thomas Vermaelen are all unavailable for the Wembley showdown.

Robin van Persie will lead out the team in captain Fabregas’ absence and Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger insists his squad can cope with the absences.

“We can deal with that. You never want accidents to happen but we can deal with the fact that Cesc will not be there, Walcott will not be there and, of course, Vermaelen will not be there,” Wenger said.

“When you look at the squad we have and the number of players we have available, we have enough quality players to deal with that.”

“We can deal with the number of games we have, we have shown that in the last three months.”

“We have belief, confidence, we are committed and we are determined to get over the last hurdle of the Carling Cup and will do absolutely everything to achieve it. That’s what we focus on.”

Arsenal have not won a trophy since 2005 but Wenger thinks winning this one could bring an avalanche of silverware back to North London.

“It can help us to have more confidence for the other trophies that we go for,” he said. It can give a bigger lift to the confidence level we have right now, which is quite high.”

“Football is football, we know what we want to do.”

“We want to dominate the game, have possession of the ball and be faithful to our game and give everything to win it.”

“For me personally, I would be delighted to win the cup but I want to do well first for the club and the players and of course I am part of that so I will be happy if we do it.”

“What’s good in our club, we are allowed to talk about anything. This team is a young team which has been put together.”

“If you look at the predictions at the start of the season, we are well over the predictions of the specialists.”

“What is important is not what happened in the last five years, but what we can do now.”

“We want to go for everything and the next one is the most important one.”

“No matter what happens we have such a big end of season in front of us no matter whether we win or don’t win.”

“What is the most important is that we have promised ourselves to give absolutely everything in every game until the end of the season and that is the target we have in front of us.”

Arsenal are definitely without Fabregas (hamstring), Walcott (ankle), Vermaelen (Achilles), Emmanuel Frimpong (knee) and Lukasz Fabianski (shoulder).

Abou Diaby (calf) and Laurent Koscielny (back) are doubtful.