Bendtner, Eduardo, Vela and Diaby will probably all be involved, with Fabregas, Walcott, Nasri and Adebayor sitting out. It will depend on who Wenger plans on starting on Wednesday night really. Arshavin will start due to his Champions League ineligibility

Thanks to Chelsea and Everton drawing midweek, and the results yesterday, the draw against Liverpool wasn’t a terrible result, just an annoying one. Most of us would have taken a draw before kick off, and while it’s painful to have been ahead three times in the game, have one of your players score four goals at Anfield, and still not pick up three points, on the balance of the game we didn’t deserve to win. We didn’t lose any ground on Chelsea, and with Villa’s failure to win in any competition for the twelfth consecutive game and Everton’s loss yesterday we now only need five points from our remaining five games to secure fourth. Looking at Villa’s coming games (Hull (h), Fulham (a), Middlesbrough (a), Newcastle (h)), they probably won’t pick up maximum points on their current form (although you’d expect them to win a couple), so a win today would pretty much seal fourth place and take the pressure off ahead of the league games that come around the Champions League semi final.

It’s looking less likely we might nab a top three place after Chelsea’s victory over West Ham yesterday (we would have a better chance had Cech not saved Mark Noble’s penalty), but if we’re to have any chance of finishing third then the impetus will have to come in the next two games. Chelsea have a West London derby against Fulham between their two Champions League games against probably the best team in the world. While we tackle Middlesbrough, who have won two away games all season, and Portsmouth, who are one of the few teams with nothing left to play for, being just about safe from relegation but too far away from the European places to challenge. After that Chelsea have to come to Le Grove, a win then would set up an interesting final couple of weeks if Chelsea happened to slip up against West Ham or Fulham.

Middlesbrough have five games to save themselves from the drop. Three of those are against teams currently in the top five, one is against fellow North East strugglers Newcastle, and on the last day they travel to West Ham, who will probably still have a ‘Europa League’ spot to be playing for. It’s not looking good for them, but teams have made it out of the drop zone in improbable circumstances before and will again. They’ve lost twelve of their sixteen away games in the league this season, scoring the joint fewest away goals of any team in the league. They’re currently three points from safety in eighteenth place. In all games against Middlesbrough under Arsene Wenger, we’ve won fourteen times, drawn five times and lost four times. Amazingly, we’re yet to beat Southgate as a manager. Since he’s taken over we’ve drawn four and lost one of the five league games we’ve played against Middlesbrough, and we’ve only won one of our last seven league meetings with them, the 7-0 victory in 2006. Aliadiere has scored against us twice in his three games for Middlesbrough since joining them in 2007.

Team News

With only a couple of days between this game and the trip to Old Trafford, it will probably be a weakened team that’s employed to beat Southgate’s men. Bendtner, Eduardo, Vela and Diaby will probably all be involved, with Fabregas, Walcott, Nasri and Adebayor sitting out. It will depend on who Wenger plans on starting on Wednesday night really. Arshavin will start due to his Champions League ineligibility.

Almunia could be back in the squad for this game, but if his ankle is still causing problems there’s no point rushing him back for a game against a team that have scored nine away goals all season. Hopefully he can be back starting for the Champions League games. Sagna didn’t look to be fully recovered from his virus against Liverpool, he could sit this one out and take a few more days recuperating. Djourou and Adebayor could also make a return to the squad after injury, but as with Almunia there’s no point rushing them back to a starting position. They’ll probably come off the bench in the second half to get some match practice. Clichy and van Persie could make it back for the second leg of the Champions League semi final, but Rosicky and Gallas’ seasons are over.

Subs: Mannone, Djourou, Fabregas, Song, Nasri, Walcott, Adebayor

Pogatetz is their only injury concern, they’re at full strength otherwise. Gary O’Neil returns from suspension and should be in the squad and Didier Digard could return to the squad after a lengthy injury spell. They’ll probably start Aliadiere for the guaranteed goal against Arsenal that he provides.