William Gallas is missing tonight with a lingering ankle injury that Wenger wants to rest. He has been a little giant of late, instead of a little grump as the media have tried to portray for most of the season thus far

Afternoon once again all,

I have to ask you something before I start talking about the Gooners. Am I the only person who walks around with an imaginary ball at my feet? I don’t just mean in the comfort of your own home but out in public? I was walking to work after dropping my daughter to school and I realised that I was trying to play through passes in between random people, I have always know that I do it but have not thought very much about it but it hit me, I am a big ass man and I am playing football with a ball that doesn’t exist. To make matters worse, this is something I do on a regular basis. I am not sure if football is actually very good for me.

This is between us though, please don’t make the men in white coats come and take me away, I’ll miss all the Arsenal games and that would be bad. Oh and there is my family as well. *ahem*

Ok, rambling over. It is Arsenal football night tonight. Doesn’t that just make the day easier to get through. It is nice to have that little light at the end of the tunnel.

William Gallas is missing tonight with a lingering ankle injury that Wenger wants to rest. He has been a little giant of late, instead of a little grump as the media have tried to portray for most of the season thus far. It will be good for Johan to get some more games under his belt, I still feel that he didn’t deserve to be dropped earlier but credit to him for getting his head down and not moaning to the media as you see many others doing in the Premier League. Look at Giovanni for Hull, what an embarrassment. Why couldn’t Phil Brown bring him off the game before they played us at the Emirates?

Back to tonight, I don’t think there will be much in the way of rotation, that could be partly down to Wenger wanting continuity so they can score goals. When you chop and change around players then it is not so easy to read your team mates, and we know that split second decisions make a big difference in this day and age.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Alex Song come in for Denilson though, I cannot remember the last Denilson was rested. Arsene has choices over Vela / Bendtner or Vela / Eboue but Vela has only started one Premier League game and Wenger likes to give his players the chance to improve on their previous performance.

I would be more than happy if Arsene kept the same side that could not blow the Fulham door down.

Mean Lean’s Predicted Line Up

Mean Lean’s Match Prediction

I said on the weekend that I didn’t believe in jinxing but I might just jinx my belief in non jinxing *scratches head* so I will give this a miss this time, but I find it hard to imagine that Arsenal will leave the pitch without scoring a goal, infact I am not having it. But what you can be sure of, is that funny law called sods will mean that when we score we will also concede. We have to make the most of Villa slipping on their Arsenal.

I’ll tell you what for nothing (contact if you wanna pay something) playing away from home without the crowd pressure and the expectancy to have to go forward will help the side. It will be Arshavin’s first game away from the lush Emirates pitch, his pace and passing will bring something to our counter attacking play.

Other Gooner Stuff

Arsene has urged his side to take advantage of Villa’s slip tonight.

“It was a very big surprise for me,” said the Gunners boss. “I think that Villa have lost a big opportunity to put us eight points behind and we want to take advantage of that. It is down to our consistency, I have said that many times, The problem is that in our environment the present situation is definite, but life is movement and football moves quicker than life.

“There is more pressure on Villa, us and everybody – maybe not only Villa are catchable. We have to put performances in to make us come back as quickly as possible.”

All I ask if the team to go for it from the off, we are at the stage where we cannot afford many more slip ups. We have enough quality to beat the likes of West Brom but the players have to think that they are Barcelona and not just expect to win. I think that is a problem that needs to be addressed. It is hard to say what the reason is for this but as far as I am concerned, it exists.

Arsene has been talking about what Arshavin can bring to Arsenal. You could see in his first two games that he has plenty in his locker.

“I believe that physically it will take him 10 more days,” the Frenchman told Arsenal TV Online. “He says he felt much better than in the first game. You could see that he is not completely there but I am convinced he will have a tremendous influence on the game.”

“We work on that to adjust our combinational level together,” said the manager. “That is as well down to intelligence. Arshavin has a quick brain and he is many steps ahead of the game and even on Saturday he gave two great chances to Robin; one header and one that Robin tried to finish with his right foot – two great passes.

“He had two great chances himself too. When you can have that kind of impact on a game it is very positive.”

He certainly looks the business in the final third, sooner or later it will all come together and he along with Van Persie, Cesc, Rosicky, Walcott, Eduardo etc etc will tear teams apart. Not just apart but in shreds, not only shreds but little tiny little pieces. Not only…. you catch my drift.

Before I go, I would like to point you to a couple of articles that you should read from Ole Gunner and Iron Man. Both different views, so should appeal to most.

A Massive 12 Months ahead – Iron Man
Arsenal 0-0 Fulham: Don’t you dare blame Song and Denilson for this one! – Ole Gunner

Right, that is that. I hope for some positive, happy writing tomorrow. Pretty please!! Come on you Redss!!

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