Mertesacker: We are Prepared for the FA Cup Final

Per Mertesacker believes that Arsenal will take heart from their FA Cup semi-final win against Wigan Athletic at the new Wembley before taking on Hull City next week.

The Gunners have the opportunity to end their nine-season stretch without a trophy by winning the FA Cup and Mertesacker believes that the results over the last couple of weeks have given them some much needed confidence.

Arsenal have won their last six games on the trot after their loss to Everton and finished the season with 79 points, seven behind league winners Manchester City.

The north London club had to dig deep to overcome Wigan, who had taken lead through a penalty after a mistake from Mertesacker.

However, the German atoned for his mistake with a diving header in the final minutes of the game, to take the game to extra time and subsequently to penalties, from where Lukasz Fabianski put in a brilliant performance to take the Gunners to the final.

"That was a tough game and you expect a lot from your side especially when you play against a Championship side. You think we'll just make it but when you drop that five, 10 per cent of mental power it's hard. When they scored the penalty everyone was not sure what was going on. Everything was questioned," Mertesacker told www.arsenal.com.

"We tried really hard and it looked like we could not score at this stage and I thought something special has to come to keep up with them and to keep up with our targets.

"I was really happy when I scored, it was something really special. We took that strength and that mental strength to go to the final. But during that game it felt really strange so everyone was questioning himself because the obvious target was to get through that semi-final easily," he concluded.