ARSENE Wenger praised his Arsenal players for having the strength of character to see off 10-man Wanderers at the Reebok on Saturday.

The Highbury boss said his Gunners had shown resilience to bounce back from their Champions League elimination by Bayern Munich and withstand a fierce challenge to their FA Cup ambitions.

He claimed Wanderers' physical approach was "always just acceptable" and applauded Patrick Vieira and Co for keeping their heads in a quarter-final that featured one red and nine yellow cards.

"We had the disappointment of Wednesday night," Wenger said, reflecting on the Gunners' European exit. "And if we were not resilient, or determined and not of strong character, we would have gone out."

The Arsenal boss had no doubts about the dismissal of El-Hadji Diouf just eight minutes into the tie when the Senegal striker was red-carded for lashing out at Jens Lehmann. But he questioned whether Wanderers' being down to 10-men had made much difference to the outcome of the game.

"It was a sending off, it was as simple as that," he said.

"Diouf plays every game on the edge. He's always like that and he hit Jens in the face. What can I say?

"I think a few of their players played on the edge, nearly every ball, and for me the atmosphere was not the best.

"We had to keep our calm and not do anything silly and we did that very well.

"We had the strength of character because we just wanted to go through.

"This was very important. We were disappointed that we went out of Europe on Wednesday night because that hurts.

"On the other hand, having so many young players, you wonder how you will respond three days later.

"Do you feel sorry for yourselves or stand up and say 'Let's perform and go forward'. That is why I am very happy."

Of the extra man advantage, Wenger said: "Of course it affected them at times because in the box they missed one player. But in the build up it didn't change anything because they just keep the same long ball into the box. The fact that Diouf was missing didn't change a lot.

"When you score first you feel sometimes it has a negative impact on your team, because you don't want to make a mistake and you're a little bit less positive going forward.

"That's why we had that kind of game - us keeping the ball, them trying to take advantage of the throw-ins, corners and long balls. And we needed a lot of character."