• Midfielder injured in brief appearance against Bolton
• Thomas Vermaelen also misses game against Braga with injury
Abou Diaby has been ruled out of Arsenal's next two games as a result of an ankle injury he sustained against Bolton on Saturday, while Thomas Vermaelen will also be absent for tomorrow's Champions League tie against Braga at the Emirates Stadium.
Diaby played just 11 minutes of the 4-1 win over Bolton, between coming on as a second-half substitute and being injured after a tackle from the visitors' full-back Paul Robinson. Vermaelen missed that game with an achilles injury from which he has yet to recover.
'Diaby is out with an ankle problem following the tackle from Robinson and I do not know for how long,' Arsène Wenger said today. 'He will not play tomorrow and certainly not at the weekend. Thomas Vermaelen is out as well with an achilles problem coming back from Belgium, so we do not have him either. We have [Theo] Walcott, [Robin] Van Persie, [Nicklas] Bendtner and [Aaron] Ramsey already out. Now Vermaelen and Diaby, so that is quite a good team out.'
With Shakhtar Donetsk and Partizan Belgrade the other sides in Group H, Arsenal are considered likely to make it into the knockout stages for the 11th successive season. Once there, Wenger feels that they have the quality to succeed but that they have in the past lacked self-belief.
'The mental side is the issue of everybody,' Wenger said. 'The problem as well is that the level of competition is high and in the second part of the tournament, it becomes a real cup game – when it is knockout it becomes a different competition. You have to have your best players available, the decisions to go for you and all that. We are always there, the quarters or the semi-final. The fact is the mental side of believing we can do it. However, it is too early to speak about winning it – let's qualify first.
'We are used to the competition and people expect us to go through because we have gone through the group stage for 10 consecutive years. We have to deal with the fact that in many games in the Champions League we are favourites. That is the price we pay for being in the competition for a long time.
Braga came through two rounds of qualifying to take their place among Europe's elite for the first time – beating both Celtic and Sevilla along the way.
'They have a strong Brazilian influence in their team, are physically strong and are well organised,' said Wenger. 'Braga is a team which plays with a very quick transition from defence to attack. What impresses me is that they finished in front of Porto and also in the qualifying round they knocked Sevilla out – that helps us to be on our toes.'
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