Arsène Wenger was pleased with his side's 'professional' win over Stoke City tonight, but confirmed the bad news of injuries to Cesc Fabregas and Theo Walcott.

The Gunners boss could not confirm how long the pair would be out for, but it seems likely that both will miss this Sunday's Carling Cup final against Birmingham.

After the game, Wenger said: "Theo Walcott has an ankle sprain and he is out. For how long, I don't know, but he is definitely out of Sunday.

"Fabregas has a hamstring problem. We will assess that tomorrow. It is impossible to see how serious it is tonight. We will know tomorrow.

"It is of course a concern that he [Fabregas] is injured but it happens unfortunately. He was very upset. I am as well. But it is not his fault or mine. It is part of sport.

"It's strange when it happens early in the game but we have to face it. We did the job after that in a very professional way."

Wenger admitted his team's game suffered from the loss of two key players, as well as the confirmed absence through injury of Robin van Persie before the game, but praised the character of his players, including match-winner Sebastien Squillaci.

He said: "He had a good game tonight Sebastien - I thought he was focused and played very well and on top of that he got a winner which was vital for us. I couldn't believe we scored with a header against Stoke.

"It was three big points for us, we knew that it was a vital game.

"Stoke is a very tricky game for everybody in this league and we were focused, intelligent, patient and in the end we got the three points.

"Stoke defended well and were very well organised, disciplined, they made it very hard for us and we lacked a little bit of sharpness.

"But I must say I'm remarkably impressed by the intelligence and the concentration of the players.

"We continue our remarkable run despite the quality of Stoke. Unfortunately we lost two important players but despite that we managed to get the result."