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I am generalising here but it seems to me that football fans on the whole tend to have a very short term view when it comes to their club. A defeat and the world is caving in, victory and the title is ours. The perfect example of this came across my path after the West Brom  penalty shoot out. When Gnabry missed his penalty  and James Morrison put West Brom 3-1  someone tweeted '3-1 Morrison #WengerOut' When we had won the shootout, I tweeted him if he still wanted the manager to be sacked and his response was no but had we lost on penalties then yes because he wants a trophy. I find that all pretty remarkable to be honest. Forget the fact that we had lost once since White Hart Lane last season, forget the fact that we currently sit top of the league but losing a game

If I was to guess, I'd say that Mathieu Flamini will continue in the side. Firstly he has not had to fly here, there and everywhere for France. He has also had less games given that he missed the Villa game and part of the Tottenham game. I'd be interested to see what foundation he and Arteta give the team and which player has more of the box to box role. I suspect that Arsene will use the Spaniard from deeper, allowing us to play the ball from the back and control the possession whilst using Flamini's industry and running further up the pitch. I also expect Per Mertesacker to continue at centre back, restoring his old partnership with Thomas Vermaelen. His work load is completely different to that of a midfielder or striker who continuously have to make sprints during games. To use an old cliche, Mertesacker plays a lot of his football in his head so I expect his body to be just find to take on the work load of the next few weeks. Maybe if all is well, Arsene can replace him for Isaac Hayden on 70. Not that I expect the game to be

Bacary Sagna is very strong in the air and it is somewhat of a surprise that he has not been used in the opposition penalty area as often as his strength in the air suggests. Safety of the counter attack may have been put ahead of trying to score. With Özil's expert delivery, I want to see Giroud, Sagna, Mertesacker and Koscielny up from the back

Nicklas Bendtner is not my favourite ever Arsenal player that is for sure. I don't think his touch is good enough, work rate is not a patch on Giroud and even Chamakh before him but reading comments on Twitter and comments sections saying how they don't want Bendtner anywhere near the squad misses the point for me. We are currently light in attack and I'd take someone of Bendtner's experience as back up instead of moving Theo Walcott 'out of position' and then needing to find someone to offer what Theo does from the right. I wonder if Arsene is contemplating a defensive switch to try and freshen up his squad, even if the West Brom game coming up. Bringing in Monreal for Gibbs who was superb in France in midweek is an option but given the fact that we may need Gibbs' attacking quality going forward, Arsene may stick rather than twist. Hoping that legs hold up.

It looks like Mikel Arteta will be the first heading through the door, Arsene hinting that he could be back for Sunday's match against Stoke City. That is great news for the squad. Flamini has done a fantastic job in the meantime but when facing a team like Stoke at home who are likely to sit deep and try and frustrate, you want to have your ball players on the pitch. Mikel Arteta is a better passer

Aaron Ramsey seems to have enough to spare at the moment after yet another goal this season.  Following Walcott’s opener, the Welsh Wizard secured the victory with a driving run and shot that took the slightest deflection to zip past Steve Mandanda in the Marseille goal. It’s safe to say that this was not the kind of run the Aaron Ramsey of 12 months ago would have made and his improvement since then has been astonishing. 6 goals (from just seven shots on target this season apparently) from midfield as well as his overall performances suggest he is going from strength to strength and will hopefully only get better. It’s been well documented how poor he has been in the past and while I will argue that a lot of the criticisms of were warranted, the vitriol he received from certain quarters was just bang out of order. Ramsey’s

Arsenal, Arsene will go for his strongest possible line up and if rotation is needed then you'd imagine that at home against Stoke City would be a better time to do it. Per Mertesacker will return to the heart of the defence, shoving Bacary stumbling over to right back. That aside I don't think there are anymore returning players even if Mikel Arteta and hopefully Santi Cazorla

There are a lot of players who are visibly confident in their game right now, you do not need to be a mind reader to know that one of the players I speak of is Aaron Ramsey. All I have done since pre season is talk of him and it is difficult not to. He picked up yet another man of the match award against Sunderland at the weekend. It is amazing

Other things are falling into place as well now. Despite a loss to the United under 21 team, the kids have started the season fairly well and the promotion of Gedion Zelalem and Serge Gnabry to the first team squad as well as the first team bow of big Chuba Akpom yesterday implies that we still have faith in our academy. Crucially, the team has also kicked on from the disappointment of four weeks ago to record 5 wins on the bounce, a couple in really trying circumstances. Additionally, to say our two form players of pre-season, Olivier Giroud and Aaron Ramsey, have hit the ground running would be to do an injustice to the both of them. They have exploded out of the blocks this season and I also find great satisfaction noticing how superbly Giroud’s English has improved with his play over the last year.

Ramsey replaced Cesc Fabregas in the team, he ghosted into many goal scoring positions but lacked the composure to finish time and time again. Hi Aaron Ramsey, meet confidence and development. Ten minutes later it was Ramsey once more who got on the end of a sweeping move to slide the ball between the keepers legs and into the net. Ramsey's 5th goal in 6 Arsenal games this season. Long may that continue I say. Unfortunately it was not all plain sailing for us though, we should have been comfortable at half time but that is not a problem because Walcott will score goals even if he is going through a slight sticky patch. What was an issue was us shooting ourselves in the foot. Regular readers of this blog will know how much I love Laurent Koscielny, one of the best centre back's in the league for me without a doubt but he really has to learn when he should attempt to go for a tackle in the box and when not to. We've seen so many fantastic last ditch stretching tackles that we almost take it for granted but whether Johnson dived or not, there was no need to take the risk. Johnson was heading away from the goal on his weaker side, Gibbs