Jack Wilshere’s follow through on Patrice Evra last weekend means that he will be resting his body rather than playing the game which will have positives unless we fail to win the game. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Aaron Ramsey are both likely to be added to the squad following recent injury, so that is a bonus. An even bigger bonus for me is that Tomas Rosicky is back in training. If I was Santi Cazorla

Last season Fulham came to Arsenal and left with a 1-1 draw. Thomas Vermaelen made the error for their goal but he took it upon himself to score the equaliser. This season Vermaelen still has the rickets in his game but the goals have dried up. I swear the other way round would be more beneficial.

Arsene has thrown his support behind his skipper and had hinted that the captain’s armband may well be putting too much pressure on him. The skipper may have to adapt quickly to a new role though, he replaced Andre Santos at Old Trafford and I would be surprised if that was changed for the game this afternoon.

We have our best defender back in the side in Lauren Koscielny, my opinion of course and the quicker he gets up to speed the better it will be for the team but as we saw up at Reading, he needs games to get back to his fantastic best. I find it amazing how players who haven’t played for a while are viewed as no longer any good without taking recent playing time into consideration. Most players need a run of games and that is the case for Koscielny.

Jack Wilshere’s follow through on Patrice Evra last weekend means that he will be resting his body rather than playing the game which will have positives unless we fail to win the game. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Aaron Ramsey are both likely to be added to the squad following recent injury, so that is a bonus. An even bigger bonus for me is that Tomas Rosicky is back in training. If I was Santi Cazorla, I would be having a mini party at that discovery. I really think the Czech will improve the Spaniard but that is for another time as this game is likely to come too soon for him.

I suspect that today Arsene will want open up his vice captain’s bird cage and set him free. Mikel Arteta has been set upon by opposition players via their managers in order to halt Arsenal’s passing game and for the most part that tactic has worked a treat for those sides, Le Coq could come to the rescue and allow Arteta to play closer to Cazorla. Restricting Arteta would be a harder task for Fulham as he would have the freedom of the pitch to get on the ball and make the team play.

I am intrigued to see Theo Walcott and Lukas Podolski in the same team. They haven’t featured in the same side very much this season and it would give the Fulham defenders plenty to think about if they made darting runs beyond Oliver Giroud. I wrote about this in a previous blog called False 9? Podolski should simply emulate Ljungberg and I would certainly love a bit of the old Freddie magic from both of those players this afternoon.

I think the team may start like this

Mean Lean’s Predicted Line Up:

Starting the game quickly is key and by that I don’t mean the score line although I’d be well up for some early goal action but we need our high tempo passing back and that has been a little lost of late. Fulham will not be charitable allowing us to slowly break them down, we will need to play quick one-two’s around their box and make things happen.

The defending of our players has been under scrutiny of late even though paradoxically we have the best defence in the league at present. But it is our attacking football that I want fixing. We have struggled to create chances in games and that has always been our strength. When I look at our squad I do not see an issue of creating chances with the players we have, especially players of the calibre of Santi Cazorla.

Let us hope for a good showing today, with players coming back from injury and of course suspension after this match, it would be a great time to create a strong platform to build on, and that means strong defensively, creating chances and scoring some goals. Hope I am not asking too much.

Come on you Gunners.