Szczesny vows to bounce back

Arsenal goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny has vowed to return ‘stronger than ever’ from a serious finger injury.

The 20-year-old has been ruled out for up to six weeks after dislocating his finger in Arsenal’s Champions League defeat to Barcelona at the Camp Nou on March 9.Szczesny’s injury, along with another to fellow keeper Lukasz Fabianski, left Manuel Almunia as Arsene Wenger’s only option in goal and forced the re-signing of veteran shot-stopper Jens Lehmann.The Polish international admitted it was hard to watch his team-mates from the sidelines as they chase the English Premier League title, but said he was committed to returning better than ever.He told Arsenal’s official magazine: “If you lose a game, you can pick yourself up as you know you have another one in a few days and need to recover – but when you are injured, you cannot just miraculously come back, you know it will take some time to get fit and you won’t actually have a game for a few weeks, so that is the biggest challenge.””But I am confident I will get through it and come back stronger than ever.”Szczesny has enjoyed a breakthrough season for Arsenal after making his Premier League debut against Manchester United in November, and has since pressed his case to be the Gunners’ number one goalkeeper.”If you told me before the season started that it would go like this, I probably would not have believed you,” he added.”I was confident I could live up to expectations, but I did not expect it to happen as fast as this.””I am enjoying it – and it is not like I was thrown in at the deep end and could not cope with it, because I think I am dealing quite well with the pressure.”Arsenal are hopeful Szczesny will have recovered in time to face Manchester United on May 1.