Friday, 19 April 2013

Arsène Wenger determined that Arsenal's Capital One Cup trip to Bradford City ... - Telegraph.co.uk

"We want to take our chance and go through to the semi-final," said Wenger. "We'll use an experienced side because we have time to recover before Monday's match at Reading. We can use the players we want to use."

At Arsenal's annual general meeting in October, Wenger described the Capital One Cup as the fifth most important "trophy" for his team after the Premier League, the Champions League, qualification for the Champions League and the FA Cup.

They have, however, qualified for the quarter-final now in nine consecutive years, with the team even recovering from a 4-0 deficit against Reading in this year's last 16 before prevailing 7-5.

"Hopefully, everybody believes now that we are serious about the competition," said Wenger, who also confirmed that talks had started over prospective new January signings.

The priority will be in attack, with Thierry Henry close to returning on loan and bids expected for Schalke's Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Crystal Palace winger Wilfried Zaha.

Wenger will also not take any internal disciplinary action against Santi Cazorla for his dive in Saturday's 2-0 win against West Brom but has reminded his Spanish playmaker of the expectations both of Arsenal and fans in England.

The Football Association cannot currently take retrospective disciplinary action for diving but support is growing for the formation of a new body that could retrospectively deal with incidents where obvious injustices have taken place.

Several Premier League clubs are already in favour of such a move, with the FA willing to consider the introduction of retrospective action next season if a sufficient number of key stakeholders do back the idea.

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