Arteta: We can’t take Wolves for granted

Mikel Arteta has insisted Arsenal have had enough wake-up calls against so-called lesser opponents this season to take nothing for granted in tonight’s match at Wolves.

The Gunners are red-hot favourites to further tighten their grip on the Premier League’s third and final automatic Champions League spot when they travel to Molineux.

Rock-bottom Wolves have lost their last six matches, while Arsenal have won seven of their last eight.

But the one blip in that spell came at QPR, the latest shock defeat for Arsene Wenger’s men away from home this season following surprise setbacks at Blackburn, Fulham and Swansea.

Arteta said: “I don’t think it will be easy at Wolves. We have some good examples this year when we have dropped points against teams near the bottom.

“We have to go there with the right mentality and the right approach and sense of pride. When you’re playing away from home, there are no easy games.”

Arteta believes Arsenal can break the Manchester monopoly of the Premier League next season.

He said: “We’ve missed big players this season, Abou Diaby, Jack Wilshere. They haven’t played at all and are massive players.

“We know we have really good players and maybe, just maybe, we can do even better than what we have done this year.”

Meanwhile Arsene Wenger says he is yet to make a decision on the future of on-loan Chelsea midfielder Yossi Benayoun, who has proven something of a talisman recently.

Wenger said: “That will happen at the end of the season. We have to look at the situation in a global way because we have many players out on loan so we need to deal with these situations.”

Arsene Wenger will be forced into at least one change tonight, with defender Laurent Koscielny serving a two-match ban for picking up his 10th booking of the season.

Meanwhile Wolves boss Terry Connor has stressed any signs of disharmony at the club are just indicators of how his players are trying to push each other on.

Things are looking increasingly desperate for the Premier League basement boys, whose 2-1 defeat at Stoke on Saturday meant they remained six points adrift of safety with only six games left.

Asked yesterday if there was any dressing-room unrest, Connor said: “No — there are demands made of each other.

“The spat between Roger (Johnson) and Wayne (Hennessey) against Bolton was two players on the pitch heated, sweating, wanting their team to win and having a disagreement.,, as long as we resolve that, move on from there and the players are fine with each other, that is all you can ask.”

Johnson was dropped for the Stoke game — the armband being passed back to fit-again midfielder Karl Henry, who had been stripped of it last summer — and it remains to be seen whether or not the defender will be restored to the side for tonight’s clash.