WENGER GETS BREATH BACK

Manchester City then lost at Brighton. But Wenger insisted that games in quick succession had left Arsenal with no time to recover from those reverses.

He added: “In England we have a strange system. We have a League Cup final in the middle of a season. We played on Sunday and against the same opponents on Thursday. It’s difficult to recover from a defeat in a cup final when you put so much effort in. So you are always in danger.

“We had no breather. So we were backsto-the-wall tonight and we had to respond.”

Wenger was proud that his players refused to buckle in the face of Milan’s 13-match unbeaten record under Gennaro Gattuso (above). He said: “That’s what you want to show, that we have the mental resources and qualities.”