Wenger: Gunners won't underestimate Farnborough

ARSENAL boss Arsene Wenger warned Farnborough Town there is no way his side will underestimate the non-League team in their FA Cup fourth round clash.

Wenger accepts that his side are "super-favourites" to progress into the fifth round in a fortnight's time, especially after the match was moved from the Nationwide Conference club's own ground due to safety issues.

The Gunners are likely to field a half-strength side, just as they did against Third Division promotion contenders Oxford in the third round.

However, there were still seven internationals in that line-up and Wenger, who has had to rule Patrick Vieira and Fredrik Ljungberg out of Sunday's game at Birmingham, believes his players will be just as professional against Farnborough.

"For them, it's a dream tie. For us, it's a danger as they will want to show how good they are, so it will be a real cup tie," he said of the encounter at Highbury.

"We accept we are super-favourites but it's always difficult to beat everybody in football. If you just think you have to walk out there and wait until it's over then you're wrong.

"Once again, we will want to show that we respect our job and our opponents. Of course we want to go through and so we want to be professional again. The manager of Oxford said he was surprised at how seriously we took the game and we had a comfortable win in the end."

Arsenal would have been facing a far more testing encounter if they had to play Farnborough on their own pitch.

However, the north Hampshire club concluded they could not guarantee the safety of fans at their 4,100-capacity Cherrywood Road ground, with the main areas of concern being over issues such as segregation and ticketing.

Wenger told the club's website, www.arsenal.com: "Part of the charm of the FA Cup is these kind of teams playing at home, but security and financial interests also take over. I think it's the right decision in this kind of game."

The Conference club will therefore miss out on £265,000 income from the Football Association for live coverage of the game as Sky Sports will instead show Gillingham's tie against Leeds.

They will nevertheless still benefit from their £40,000 highlights fee, as well as 50% of gate receipts, which could give them up to a further £500,000.

Indeed, given the huge cost of staging such a high-profile tie at their own ground, they will almost certainly benefit more from playing the game at Highbury.

Arsenal have also ensured a further financial boost by promising Farnborough the profits from programme sales at the game.