I am no tactical genius so the answer could be quite simple and could be slipping past me but from the evidence that I have seen over the last few seasons, when we fight to win the ball back and hem the opposition back then we are at our best and can beat anyone but when we switch that off

Ok, first thing is first. Arsenal have not suffered any injury problems to our first team squad so far and that is by far the most important part of this weekend. I am holding back on any air punching just yet though. March 28th – March 30th provides another list of fixtures in which Jack Wilshere, Robin Van Persie, Samir Nasri, Gael Clichy, Bacary Sagna, Tomas Rosicky, Andrey Arshavin, Nicklas Bendtner, Marouane Chamakh and Kieran Gibbs could all feature, so the coast is yet to be clear.

I watched the Wales vs England game last night, mainly to watch the two Arsenal boys in the midfield and I must admit I enjoyed the game very much. I was hoping that Scott Parker would play in the England midfield to give Wilshere the freedom to express himself and that is what happened.

It looks as if Gary Speed wants his team to play out from the back and has probably been working on his squad to pass and move. Capello set out his team to press from the front and not allow the Welsh time in their own half to move the ball. It looked quite painful after a while as the Welsh players on the whole did not have the ability to pass around England’s intense pressure.

It wasn’t a great day for Aaron Ramsey. In the advanced midfield role he wasn’t able to receive many passes with support of his team mates as the home side sat so deep. He is also lacking ‘a little bit sharpness’ which is understandable and we saw that against West Brom last weekend.

Even without Ramsey at his very best we saw glimpses of his ability. He has very quick feet and never hides. It might take until next season, after a full pre season training and games before we see him at his best but the signs are promising.

Jack Wilshere played how Jack Wilshere plays. It could be against Barcelona, it could be against Wales or Grimsby, he continues to play well alongside whoever or against whichever opponent.

He had a few through passes after striding forward into Welsh territory that almost came off but not quite. I do have plenty of time for Scott Parker as a player and I think his introduction to the England team has come a little late.

England’s high pressing game worked very well and according to Wilshere, Capello has been inspired by Barcelona.

Wilshere said: “We watched some videos on Barcelona and the way they press. The full squad watched clips of them against Arsenal a couple of days ago.

“We want to press like them because they are the best team in the world, so we have to learn from teams like that. We pressed high and were able to get two early goals.”

It is a style and system that I admire very much. Whenever we have implemented something similar we have often won the match. We seem to switch our levels of pressing on and off throughout the season and I am not sure why this is. Perhaps Arsene does not want to tire out his players if we have a busy schedule. Perhaps it makes our players more prone to injury by putting so much into every minute of every game.

Barcelona are able to kill many teams off within 45 minutes in La Liga as the overall level of opposition is lower than the Premier League.

I just wonder how structured our pressing is. When is it decided that we will put our all in to stopping the opposition having time on the ball. Is it only against certain opposition?

I do not believe that it is a coincidence that our best form of the season came when Nasri moved to the left and Theo came in on the right and we pressed high up the pitch. Chelsea (h), Manchester City (h), and Birmingham City (a) all came about after our loss at Old Trafford and the subsequent changes.

Interestingly enough, the one result that didn’t match the positive results was the Wigan away performance when Arsene made many changes to the team. We had enough quality on the pitch to have beaten Wigan but the pressing game had disappeared. Why didn’t those players continue with what served the team so well?

I am no tactical genius so the answer could be quite simple and could be slipping past me but from the evidence that I have seen over the last few seasons, when we fight to win the ball back and hem the opposition back then we are at our best and can beat anyone but when we switch that off and slow our tempo down then we can beat and lose to anyone.

We are an attacking team who need the ball in the opposition half and the best way to do that is to win it back quickly in the opponents half. I am more than happy with our squad, that may not be the case with every Gooner but I believe that if we approached every game in the same vein as we did against Chelsea then we would be looking down from a great distance at the rest of the teams on the league table.

In other news Jens Lehmann could play for the reserves against Wigan on Tuesday. Regardless of the managers intentions for the number one spot, it makes sense that Jens has match practice just in case Almunia picks up an injury whether it be a standard injury or another mysterious long term problem.

If he does play for the reserves then it will be interesting to see how he performs, only then can Arsene really decide if he would be ready for a top flight game.

I think the fringe players turning out for the reserves makes for an interesting subject but one that I shall go into tomorrow as my son is whacking the football around the living room and is begging me to play football in the garden.

With the sun shining, it would be rude not to.

Back tomorrow.