It will not be easy but Arsenal will need to recompose themselves and forget what was one of the most disappointing chapters of their campaign.

Speaking after the Wembley Final lost by two goals to one against Alex McLeish’s Birmingham, manager Arsene Wenger confessed the defeat could affect his players as it is a “massive disappointment” but also how massive challenges ahead of them such as the English Premier League and the Champions League should give them the right motivation to bounce back and fight.

The Arsenal boss, confident that his players will react positively after the defeat, also spoke about injuries as he confirmed that Dutch striker Robin van Persie suffered a knee problem when he volleyed home Arsenal’s equaliser.

Wenger added how losing Theo Walcott, Cesc Fabregas and now van Persie is not easy as he explained how his side had a physical disadvantage compared with Birmingham who used a reserve team against Sheffield Wednesday.

After the defeat, the Frenchman declared:

Exactly [it could affect us], we don’t deny that. It is a massive disappointment for the team but we have massive challenges in front of us – the Carling Cup is four games, five games but a championship season is 38.

We will not throw 38 games away because of one game. I am confident we have the character and this is a good opportunity to show it.

[Robin van Persie] has a knee problem. Yes [he did it in scoring]. What is difficult for us to take at the moment is that we lose too many players. We lost Walcott and Fabregas on Wednesday. Birmingham played their reserve team against Sheffield Wednesday and they started stronger than us until we got into the pace of the game. Physically we had a disadvantage because of the repetition of the games we play.