Wenger to send '11 gladiators' into the arena

ARSENE WENGER said he cannot promise there will be no repeat of last season's Old Trafford melee as he will be sending out 11 gladiators to face Manchester United tomorrow.

However, he insists that Arsenal have cleaned up their disciplinary act since being hit by what he still maintains were overly-harsh penalties 13 months ago. And he urged referee Mike Riley to keep a close eye on the antics of all players, including Ruud van Nistelrooy, who sparked last season's bust-up after his clash with Patrick Vieira.

Arsenal let themselves down with their reaction to Vieira's dismissal and van Nistelrooy's late penalty miss, with Martin Keown leading the unseemly goading of the Dutchman.

As a result, four players missed a total of nine games through suspension, while they and the club were fined £275,000.

Chairman Peter Hill-Wood has admitted his embarrassment at his side's "unacceptable" behaviour, confessing that it "looked terrible."

However, he insisted: "We learned from it. Hopefully, that is in the past and there won't be any kind of problem on Sunday."

Wenger was nevertheless later asked whether he felt there was any danger of a repeat performance.

"The funny thing in football is that you can never say never as it's a sport of human beings. You want gladiators to go out with full commitment and big passion, although also with a relaxed attitude. It went a bit overboard last season. I don't think it will happen again but ..."

As for being embarrassed, he added: "I don't know about that, but I cannot say I was happy as we got a lot of negative publicity and you feel responsible for that as a manager.

"I remember Martin Keown telling me that his kids had seen him on television and weren't very proud of him. But despite some opinions, I still feel we were punished quite hard."

The chief proponent of the alternative view has been Alex Ferguson, who believes that Arsenal effectively "got away with murder."

Wenger nevertheless insisted: "With all the negative publicity we got, the consequence was that we got hit very hard financially if you compare with what has been done since. But the best response we gave was to win the fair play table," he said.

Referee Riley will be keeping a close eye on both sets of players, a fact which Wenger welcomed after accusing van Nistelrooy of having "no class" after last September's game.

If van Nistelrooy had converted his last-minute penalty last September, Arsenal's unbeaten league run would not be on the verge of a half-century. It would have stopped after just seven matches.

Wenger therefore only has some regrets from last year's encounter, given that his side also proved their strong team spirit.

"The unity in the camp was a fantastic response, that was the positive thing of the incident for me. But the fact that we didn't keep our control was not right," he said.

"When the players say that it helped us, it's not just because of the incident, but the fact that van Nistelrooy missed the penalty as that kept us going."

Strangely enough, Wenger is not expecting another physical game, even though the evidence of his side's past three matches at Old Trafford points exactly the other way. However, with Patrick Vieira winning his fitness battle, he warned that Arsenal will be ready for anything.

"I feel that United are more of a creative side than a destructive side so I don't expect the game to be overly physical," he added.

"But I think we have to prepare to cope with any kind of situation that we may face. I am convinced that we have the qualities to cope with any kind of football. "No matter what happens on the pitch, the best way to respond is to play our game based on speed and technique."

But had Wenger since dared to watch a video of the unseemly scenes at Old Trafford? He said: "I didn't need to as I saw it every half an hour on television."