LONDON -- Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has identified Aston Villa striker Christian Benteke as the leading threat to his side's hopes of success in Saturday's FA Cup final at Wembley.
Wenger has previously stated that he was monitoring Benteke's progress as he made his mark in Belgian football with Genk, with Villa's move to sign him in August 2012 coming as "a surprise" to the Arsenal boss who was clearly an admirer of the forward.
Now he accepts Benteke could dent his side's FA Cup ambitions this weekend, praising the forward who has scored 12 goals in his last 12 matches for Villa.
"He has a fantastic leap, he is an intelligent player and he can score against anyone in the league," Wenger said of Benteke. "Some of the bad fortune with Villa and also some of the bad fortune of Villa this season was that Benteke was not there."
Wenger also urged his side give Villa full respect as Arsenal looked to win the FA Cup for a second successive season, insisting the side that successfully battled against relegation throughout the Premier League campaign offer a potent threat to his side's ambitions of retaining the trophy they won last May.
"They are a strong side," he continued. "You analyse their quality and they are a quality team. They had a great semifinal and they are they are strong opponents, they have a lot of strengths in their side."
Wenger also confirmed that he once came close to signing Tim Sherwood for Arsenal, with the coach -- who went on to play for and manage their north London rivals Tottenham -- impressing the Gunners boss in his first few months in the Villa Park dugout.
"He has done extremely well. He has lifted their confidence and got them to go forward a lot. They are positive, so overall I feel he has done a very good job," Wenger said, before confirming on his interest in signing Sherwood during his playing days.
"It is true that he was a good midfielder there were talks with him. I don't remember why he did not sign, but we did talk to him."
Wenger will equal the record for the most FA Cup wins by a manager if he lifts the trophy for a sixth time this weekend, but the Frenchman insisted that was not his chief motivation heading into the clash against Villa.
"It is not easy to do that," he added, as he reflected on his five previous victories on the competition in 1998, 2002 2003, 2005, 2014. "I would love to do it, but I am not focused on that honestly.
"We have fought so hard to get there and we had to beat Man United to qualify. We had to win big games to get there and now we want to finish the job."