Wenger remains confident his fast-emerging side can also wrestle fourth place in the Barclays Premiership away from Tottenham before their trip to Paris next month, and so ensure another crack at elite European football when they move to the new, 60,000-seater Emirates Stadium for the start of the 2006/2007 campaign.

There have been suggestions inspirational captain Thierry Henry would consider his job done at Arsenal should they beat Barcelona, or indeed decide to move on whatever the result at the Stade de France.

Wenger, though, insists almost a decade’s work since his arrival in north London is not about to end, regardless of the result of a football match to be played out in the Parisian suburbs.

The Arsenal manager declared: “I do not think it will be the end of anything at all, I think it is start of a new era because it is a very young team.

“Players like [Cesc] Fabregas, [Philippe] Senderos, [Mathieu] Flamini, [Emmanuel] Eboue, [Robin] van Persie and [Jose Antonio] Reyes, they start with the Champions League final at their age – and it is just the start for them.

“They have shown a lot of qualities, like character, sticking together. Even not playing well and being able to get a result and that was very good for such a young team.”

Wenger added: “I am very happy we have got to the final. I want to finish the job on May 17 in great way and therefore we will have continuity in the way we work.”

The Frenchman has certainly helped transformed the club since his arrival in September 1996, steering the Gunners to three Premiership titles and four FA Cup triumphs.

And Wenger will rightly take a great sense of pride when he leads the side out for the first time at Ashburton Grove.

Chairman Peter Hill-Wood this week admitted he “dreads the day” when the 56-year-old decides to call time on his career with them.

Wenger reflected: “I always try to honour my contracts and my contract runs out in 2008 and of course part of it was to stay through the opening the new stadium and keep the team going.

“After 2008, what I will do? I do not know.”

The Frenchman declared: “Arsenal is the club of my life. I have been here from the age of 45 to 55.”

Wenger joked: “It is an age in your life when you have enough experience not to be stupid and you still manage sometimes to be stupid – but I have managed to be successful so, of course, it will always be my club.”

Arsenal take on relegated Sunderland at the Stadium of Light on Monday looking to keep the pressure up on north-London rivals Spurs, whom they trail by four points, but with a match in hand following last week’s controversial 1-1 draw at Highbury.

The irony of Wenger’s men finishing fifth, but securing victory over Barcelona and so displacing their north London rivals in the Champions League next season is not lost on Gunners fans.

However, any suggestions of Spurs seeking redress through the courts against the UEFA directive, which was put in place at the end of last season, were quickly rejected by the Arsenal manager.

Wenger said: “The rules exist, I do not say they are good or bad – but once they are in place when a season starts you cannot change them at the end of the season.

“If they [Spurs] had done that at the beginning of the season I would have understood completely.”

The Arsenal boss added: “I do not think UEFA changed the rules as such because they did not knock Everton out, they got Liverpool in. That was the exception made and therefore they changed the rules because they did not want to be in the same situation again. So the rules are clear.

“I am not against Tottenham getting in to the Champions League, but we all know the rules.

“If somebody wins it in this way, the rules are the same whether it is Arsenal or Tottenham or everybody else. It is the same.”