Mancherster United dominated the game but were unable to convert their superiority into goals and Arsenal hung on to take the match to penalties. With Paul Scholes seeing his effort saved by Jens Lehmann Arsenal’s five penalty takers made no mistake from the spot to take the trophy for the 10th time in their history.
“We were fortunate not to concede in the second half because United played well and created three or four great chances,” Wenger told a news conference.
“We played a bit more not to lose, rather than to win, and we didn’t create enough going forward
“We switched off a bit physically after the Everton game (whicg Arsenal won 7-0), you could already see that at Birmingham, and it was difficult to switch it back on again today,” he said.
“Overall, I feel we won it more with our mental strength and our resilience than with our usual style.
“We kept our nerve and that was vital in the penalty shootout, where we did extremely well.
“We’ve won our fourth final…and basically the one we played the best in we lost,” he said when asked whether Arsenal were fortunate against United.
