Arsenal grabbed their first away win in Europe in a year

Arsene Wenger believes goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski will gain confidence from his performance during Arsenal's 3-1 win over 10-man Partizan Belgrade.

Fabianski, known more for his blunders with the Gunners, looked assured and saved a penalty in the Champions League Group H game.

"We have seen the Lukasz I see every day," said Arsenal boss Wenger.

"I believe it's good encouragement for him. It's important he had a good game, he has a lot of talent."

However, Wenger refused to confirm whether Fabianski, who came in for Manuel Almunia, who has an elbow injury, would be picked as the final line of defence at Chelsea on Sunday.

"At the moment Almunia is injured, we will have to see how his injury goes but at the moment it is too early to say," he said.

Wenger did indicate that midfielder and captain Cesc Fabregas could return from a knee injury for the Stamford Bridge showdown.

There were doubts over whether the game in Belgrade would go ahead or not following the failure of one of the floodlights on Tuesday night but the referee and teams agreed there was enough light available for the match to take place.

Arsenal took the lead through Andrey Arshavin, who latched on to a brilliant flicked pass from Jack Wilshere before slotting in, but Partizan equalised thanks to striker Cleo's spot-kick after Arsenal's Denilson had handled the ball inside the area.

The Serbian side then had Marko Jovanovic sent off for bringing down Marouane Chamakh, but Arshavin missed the subsequent penalty.

Chamakh made amends for Arshavin's miss by scoring his side's second goal before French defender Sebastien Squillaci added a third, and Fabianski saved a late Cleo spot-kick to complete a satisfactory night for the London side.

"Partizan gave us the game we expected - full of commitment, full of power on every break," added Wenger.

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"We had a lot of the ball and created a lot of chances. However, we could not kill the game off and then we were always under threat.

"They came back with the penalty, afterwards we needed to keep the pace high and when we got the second goal, I thought we looked comfortable."

The Frenchman said it was important for the Gunners to have immediately bounced back from Saturday's 3-2 loss at home to West Brom.

Wenger said: "For us, it was important to win straight away after a big disappointment.

"It puts us in a good position confidence-wise, Sunday is a big, big game for us. I believe we will go there with a desire to do extremely well."

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