LONDON — Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger could be excused if he felt like singing a verse of ‘we've won our trophy back' after his team retained the FA Cup with a 4-0 demolition of Aston Villa in Saturday's final at Wembley. The 65-year-old Frenchman is now the most successful FA Cup manager of modern times having led the Gunners to a 12th triumph, a record for football's oldest knockout competition.
“I am very proud of that because if it has not been done it shows that it is not easy,” Wenger told reporters.
“I have managed in seven finals and we have won six. I am very proud of that.”
Theo Walcott, preferred to Olivier Giroud in attack after scoring a Premier League hat trick against West Bromwich Albion last weekend, fired Arsenal in front before halftime.
Alexis Sanchez added a second after the break with a thumping shot that swerved one way and then the other before defender Per Mertesacker and substitute Olivier Giroud completed a comfortable victory.
“It was a convincing win because we were at it from the first to the last minute. I never felt the focus or the quality dropped,” Wenger said.
Arsenal finished third in the Premier League and Wenger is backing his side to build on its second straight FA Cup success. It beat Hull City 3-2 in the final 12 months ago.
“We feel we have made progress since the start of the season in the way we play and the way we manage games,” he said.
“Of course we can push on. It is about consistency at the top level. In the past when we have won leagues we have been consistent.”
The Gunners may need to go into the transfer market to catch league champion Chelsea.
Arsenal's revival has been helped by the loosening of the purse strings at the Emirates Stadium, with the big-money acquisitions of Sanchez and Mesut Ozil over the last two years adding guile, grace and big-game know-how to a team of notoriously brittle confidence.
“We will see what is going on in the transfer market, but we already have a good basis and a good confidence level,” Wenger said.
“Lets be intelligent in the summer. Of course we can push on. We have won the league before when we had the potential to do it. Lets do it again.” Grim-faced Villa manager Tim Sherwood was more forthcoming about his plans for next season as he surveyed the wreckage of his team's failed bid to win the Cup for the first time since 1957.
Sherwood earned plaudits for helping Villa avoid relegation following his arrival in February, but the way his players meekly accepted defeat Saturday only emphazised how much rebuilding still needs to be done to a squad grown used to underachievement.
“The group needs to get better, they need to change their mentality because quite a few of them are too used to losing matches,” Sherwood said. — Agencies
