SOCCER UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE SEMI-FINAL, FIRST LEG:ARSENE WENGER pondered the rules of modern Champions League engagement at Old Trafford yesterday and dwelt on something of a paradox. "The rules are made," he said, with reference to the knock-out stage of the competition, "to encourage the team at home to be cautious and the team away from home to be audacious. To score an away goal would be very important."

Audacity suits Wenger and his thrusting young Arsenal team and hours after Alex Ferguson said Manchester United would sign up for a 1-0 victory in the first-leg of the Champions League semi-final on their own turf, Wenger spoke of playing with a certain liberation. Home advantage, he suggested, might be a misnomer.

Although Wenger has arrived in recent seasons on a preferred European formation that sees the deployment of a lone striker, he has always supported that player with pace and offensive power and firmly believes he has the weapons to trouble United.

As ever, he was reluctant to single out individuals, but if Emmanuel Adebayor, recently back from a hamstring injury, can punch his weight and Cesc Fabregas and Theo Walcott, in particular, can thrive behind and around him, then Arsenal could take something tangible, perhaps decisive, into the return leg . The key will be whether Arsenal’s players can respond to their manager’s promptings. It was vital, Wenger said, they expressed themselves .

“I don’t know if we will benefit from being underdogs, I just believe we’re on a good run and are going from strength to strength,” he said, with a nod towards Arsenal’s unbeaten Premier League run that stands at 20 matches. “We have enough to deliver something special.

“One day, Andrey Arshavin [who is cup-tied] scores four goals against Liverpool, another day, someone else will score. We have an ideal of the game that we love and we want to play. Anyone in our team can take advantage of that. Let us not focus on United weaknesses but on our strength and the way we want to play.”

Arsenal produced arguably their finest performance of last season in defeat – at Liverpool in the Champions League quarter-final second-leg. They brimmed with attacking vigour only to be undone by a controversial late penalty. This time, Wenger feels, the team has developed greater mental toughness that will help to ally the right result to a similar performance. “The team has matured,” he said. “It is mentally very strong and very determined. Maybe this is because we went through a bad start to the season; a difficult period helps a team that is very young. It is a different animal to last season.”

Wenger said Adebayor was “fully fit” and while he pointed out that a striker was often only as good as the service into him, the Togolese was more bullish. He has scored on his previous two league visits to Old Trafford, in defeat last season and in a 1-0 victory the year before, and intends to feed on the hostility of the United crowd.

“I know they do not like me because I’ve managed to get goals and you just feel like ‘okay, I will show you again how good I am’,” he said. “It won’t be easy to get another goal but I will do everything it takes. When you get on to the pitch, the people around will be singing against you, they will be hating you, and that can give you more motivation.”

Adebayor, like many of his team-mates, is still to win a trophy in his career and Wenger will also use the pain of defeat in the 2006 Champions League final to increase the mental focus of his players. “That game against Barcelona was special and the only regret we have is that we played with 10 men [following Jens Lehmann’s sending-off]. It’s part of a career to swallow the disappointments and come back even stronger.

“What you do on the pitch is what you have prepared for in your head before it comes,” added Adebayor.

“You have to imagine the situations on the pitch. As soon as the head asks for something, the body will follow. It is going to be tough but we have to believe we can do it. That is why we are here.”

• Guardian Service