Young guns ready to storm back in Europe

Gilberto has told his young colleagues to forget about their mauling by Manchester United and insisted Arsenal still have a stronger squad than their northern rivals.

The Brazilian maintained that the 4-0 FA Cup defeat at Old Trafford was more a case of "growing pains" as opposed to evidence that Arsene Wenger's carefully-nurtured prospects are not as good as everyone thought they were - including the players themselves.

Gilberto said: "Our performance was not good and we were all disappointed but this does not mean that, suddenly, our squad does not have what it takes to win trophies this season."

"People may say that this result suggests United have the stronger squad. That is not my belief. "Mistakes were made, yes, but the belief of the players, especially the young ones here, should not be affected."

The 31-year-old said his team-mates now had the chance to bounce back against European Champions AC Milan on Wednesday night.

Arsene Wenger's team have now crashed out of both domestic cup competitions and only have the Champions and Premier League titles left to play for.

The fact that Wenger's young guns were shot to pieces by United in a way worryingly similar to that of their Carling Cup semi-final defeat by Tottenham, indicates it may take far longer than had been anticipated for them to prove Wenger has true strength in depth given their previous spectacular rate of development.

On the evidence of his side's 4-0 victory, it is Sir Alex Ferguson who has the back-up players required as the battle for trophies heads for the wire - players like Darren Fletcher, Michael Carrick, Nani, Ji-Sung Park and even the inspirational 19-year-old Anderson are considered as troops to be held in reserve.

Wenger was without nine players for the fifth-round tie and with Emmanuel Adebayor, Mathieu Flamini and Gael Clichy on the bench it all went horribly wrong. But Gilberto added: "These young players have shown for some time now, and not just this season, that they have great talent and also that they have the heart for winning.

"They must not now allow themselves to start believing that they do not have what it takes. "We have Milan coming up now and of course it will be another big test for some of the team but while we cannot allow ourselves to repeat the kind of performance of Saturday, we should also not allow ourselves to start to think that we have lost anything else than one game.

"We must all keep faith in ourselves and I think we will." Back in November 2004, when United ended Arsenal's 49-game unbeaten run in the League, the wheels came off Wenger's team but Gilberto insisted that will not happen this time. He said: "We will come back from this". "This squad can still succeed this season and get even better."