Arsenal vs Wigan Athletic | EPL

Robin van Persie could return for Saturday's Premier League clash with Wigan but Denilson's injury will sideline him for "a few weeks".

Both players missed the Champions League win at Standard Liege after picking up knocks during last weekend's defeat at Manchester City. Van Persie's knee problem has almost cleared up but Denilson's back will take longer to heal.

"Robin van Persie is the most likely to come back [for Saturday]," explained Arsène Wenger in an exclusive interview with Arsenal TV Online. "Denilson looks to be out for a few weeks with a back problem."

Manuel Almunia is still troubled by the chest infection which ruled him out of Wednesday night's game in Belgium, so Vito Mannone will continue in goal against Wigan.

Arsenal are still without Theo Walcott (back), Samir Nasri (leg), Lukasz Fabianski, Johan Djourou (both knee) and Carlos Vela (ankle) but Andrey Arshavin (groin) has an outside chance of making the squad for Saturday.

"There is a 10 per cent chance for Arshavin," confirmed Wenger.

Great Victory.
Wish We could have showed the same performance against city n utd.

On Thomas Vermaelen...

You can question his height but not his leap. That makes up for his height, but he's taller than you expect; he's not small. He has a very, very strong upper body and a very, very good leap. His leap is very sharp and he is very quick and that is something very important on headers. Because if two players analyse the flight of the ball at the same time, the one who jumps the quickest is the one who heads the ball first.

I [first noticed him] when he played against us because he played against Theirry Henry and he kept him quiet, and against Robin van Persie he kept him quiet.

He's quiet, wanting always to do well, hard working and looks mentally strong. We haven't had that type of centre back before. He's left footed as well. It gives us two advantages. It allows us to play Gallas on the right side, where he wants to play. It gives us a natural balance with the left footed and the right footed player passing out from the back. You know you could see that he plays balls with his left foot, and that is something very interesting.

On a scuffle between Robin Van Persie and Vermaelen in the Amsterdam Tournament two years ago...

I liked that. If you're a centre-back you need to be fully committed. At that time he [Vermaelen} was 22 so maybe he wanted to show that he could compete.

I think what gave us a chance from that moment on is that he played left back a lot last year and so people watched him a lot. People saw him more at left back than centre back.

On the second goal....

I liked the second goal because it is not that you close your eyes and hit the ball as strong as you can and it goes into the top corner. You decide before what you want to do and it was well executed.

On taking chances...

I believe at Manchester City we wanted to rush the game. When it came back to 1-1 we were so much on top and we wanted quickly to convert that. That's where I think we have learnt that we should say, 'ok lets now win the game'. We exposed ourselves to counter attacks and that was, of course, deadly.

On Vermaelen's goals to games ratio

I am surprised but maybe we dominated games more than Ajax did at the time and maybe it's the period. He will not score 25 goals this year, but he has scored more already than I expected him too.
I don't know. I believe he is first a defender, and if he can keep us a few clean sheets it's even better. On set pieces he looks strong because he has the timing and the leap so [I thought] he could get maybe six or seven goals.

On players who get special treatment from referees...

I don't know [who get it], I must look in the football book. I rule nobody out. It is not specially aimed at any particular player. It just looks to me that some players make repeated fouls and they do not get punished and a yellow card is not linked at all with the number of fouls a player makes, but with the spectacular side of the fouls. So if some player makes only little fouls, and I can give you in the last four games we played, in every single team there is one player who does that.

I do not want to make any fuss of it, I just want to make the referees alert of that.

It's not any special player, it's just in general. I feel the little fouls are being repeated. Its so different nowadays with playing the ball out of the back to make a difference. When you have made the difference and you can play four against four and three against three in one half, that's what people enjoy out there. Then, you get the foul. That means a second later, you play ten against ten in one half, and all the work you have done is for nothing and you start from scratch again. This is not punished enough.

It's what we call a professional foul. You make a little foul, start again, and you have time to get everybody back and you have players in front of the ball. Wigan did not do that any more than other teams, but in general in football, many players get away with five or six fouls in one half.
I will try to speak [to the FA] to talk about it. We have already talked about it. In the modern game you play always against 10 defenders.

That was a good game, shame the Mancs couldn't have played like Wigan.