Wenger unlikely to appeal Gilberto red card

on the win at Ewood Park...
"It was a superb victory because it was under difficult circumstances. It was a game with a mixture of quality, spirit and solidarity and that is fantastic to watch. It's good to see commitment mixed with class and technique and we have shown that today."

on Gilberto's red card...
"He will miss three matches. To me the red card looked harsh because the first foul was made by Savage. Gilberto reacted a bit too much because he was kicked after the referee had blown the whistle. Ideally he should not have reacted at all but he told me he didn't touch Savage. There is not a lot we can do about it, we had to accept it and we gave the right response. We played 80 minutes with 10 men and still kept going forward every time we could."

on a possible appeal against the sending off...
"Usually appeals don't work when the referee has seen it so we could even get one game more! We don't want to take that chance."

on the 'letter of the law'...
"I felt that Savage went in an aggressive way to Gilberto. I felt that if you send Gilberto off then you should send Savage off as well, although I need to see the incident again. The referee was very close to the action and decided to give Savage a yellow for the first foul, which he deserved. He applied the law to the letter, that means a red card for retaliation and a yellow for a bad foul, so he can defend his case. But in the spirit of the game I think both could have gone."

on Thierry Henry's goal...
"It was a sensational goal. It had real class with the timing of the pass and the run as well. When you are 1-0 up it only takes one mistake and it is 1-1. You have the crowd against you in the stadium but the second goal definitely killed the game in the heads of the Blackburn supporters. Our supporters were fantastic again today."

on the recent blip at Sheffield United...
"We played so many games in December, every three days and in the Champions League as well. We had 10 players out at Sheffield United and it was just one or two too many. Overall though if you look at our run since the end of November we have had some very good results. Now we are chasing the points we lost at Sheffield United because we could have been three points closer."

15/2 - Blackburn v Arsenal: Arsenal to win 2-0