Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger was full of praise for former Gunner Sebastian Larsson and happy that the Sweden International has become a very strong defender.

Speaking on Friday in his pre-match press conference, the Frenchman explained that the 26-year old is finally enjoying a run as regular at Sunderland after spending time at Birmingham, something that was unfortunately not possible when he was at Arsenal as there were a number of players that were ahead of him in the pecking order.

Asked about reports suggesting that goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski wants to leave during the January transfer window, the Arsenal boss joked with the journalists as he said that he doesn’t read the bad news published by certain newspapers adding that the Poland International is happy at Arsenal.

And on Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Wenger concluded by saying that the 18-year old could feature in Euro 2012 if he does well at Arsenal although it is important to understand that the youngster stills needs time to fully adapt to the intensity of top-level football.

Ahead of tomorrow’s game, the manager said:

[Sebastian Larsson] has done extremely well, he has been educated here and we are always very happy when we can contribute to the career of a player.

When he was a young boy there were many big players in front of him. He went first to Birmingham to the Championship level and then slowly moved up.

I was always confident he could make it because he had a fantastic attitude, a great engine and good technique. I am not surprised that he’s doing well.

[Lukasz Fabianski asking to leave?] No. I don’t read too much, the speciality is to get bad news in the newspapers so it’s not worth to spoil your breakfast.

[If he's happy?] I think so, but are you always happy in your life? It can change from one day to the next.

You’re only happy when you come to a press conference here so you should maybe make more press conferences.

[Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain exceeding my expectations?] Yes, I didn’t expect him to be as comfortable as quickly as that, you know, so of course he has done extremely well.

He still needs, I think, some more time to adapt to the intensity of the level of the games but he has the quality, already, of top-level Premier League games.

[Featuring in Euro 2012?] I don’t rule him out, that depends on his progress here. Again sometimes you are a bit too quick in England for that.

But you cannot rule him out because he has the basic talent. In the next five, six months we will see how he adjusts to the physical intensity of the game.

Today you cannot expect too many players to be unknown because every single big game is watched by everybody.

Slowly England is getting players out of the youth system that have the quality to play at a very interesting level.