Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger confirmed the Gunners will face Braga in tonight’s Champions League game without defender Thomas Vermaelen and midfielder Abou Diaby.

Speaking on Tuesday, the Frenchman explained how it is not yet known for how long the midfielder will be out after he featured for less than 10 minutes in Saturday’s 4-1 win over Bolton although the 24-year old was optimistic saying he should only miss three games. As for the Belgian defender, he was supposed to miss only one game but failed to recover in time to face the Portuguese side.

Wenger admitted he is disappointed to see so many players out injured at such an early stage of the season but will be delighted to see midfielder Samir Nasri making a speedy recover from knee surgery and making the squad.

Arsenal will face Domingos Paciência’s Braga in today’s 19:45 kick-off at the Emirates, their Champions League Group H opener. Eduardo’s Shakhtar Donetsk and Partizan Belgrade complete the group.

Wenger said:

Diaby is out with an ankle problem following the tackle from Robinson and I do not know for how long.

He will not play tomorrow and certainly not at the weekend. I’m vague because it’s the ankle on which he had surgery.

I was very anxious because he had a scan yesterday [Monday] and with Diaby there are always bad surprises on the scan. But the scan looks quite promising.

We don’t know how long he will be out as we don’t know how long the inflammation will take to go down.

Thomas Vermaelen is out as well with an Achilles problem coming back from Belgium, so we do not have him either.

We have Walcott, Van Persie, Bendtner and Ramsey already out. Now Vermaelen and Diaby, so that is quite a good team out.