New captain Fabregas will return to the side after missing out on the fun at the weekend due to suspension. Adebayor, Toure, Eboue and Walcott are all still absent

Right, we’re in full on crisis mode. One win from five and consecutive defeats in the league, and a manager that continues to seem perplexed by the results in post-loss conferences and continue to refer to our potential, spirit, and not-yet-dead-apparently title challenge. Why he feels the need to insult our intelligence about the issues, I don’t know, but enough paragraphs have been written about how wrong everything is at the moment so I won’t go into it, seeing as these are supposed to be previews but I usually fill up space by talking about the previous games performance. The soonest changes can be made is January, and that’s a fair way away yet, so we need to concentrate on the games we have in the mean time or things could get much, much worse. In 2006 we made it to the Champions League final despite a similarly shambolic league form, and despite this being easily Wenger’s worst squad, Liverpool won the Champions League with Djimi Traore in the side, who’s to say we can’t win it with Alex Song? Erm…several people probably, but you never know.

While we’re in crisis mode, the small matter of Champions League qualification is still here and the squad and the manager need to pull their finger out and get back on track.

Because we failed to beat Fenerbahce at home, qualification isn’t yet definite. Victory on Tuesday and we qualify, and the last match day against Porto will be a battle to see who goes through seeded top of the group. A goalless draw would also see us qualify, as at worst we could finish level on points with Fenerbahce or Kyiv, and we would go through by virtue of the results of the matches against those two. However, if we were to draw, say, 2-2 tomorrow, or lose, then we could easily find ourselves needing a victory in Portugal or face a season on UEFA Cup football. Although, with our league form, that would almost seem about right. Despite our inability to beat them on their patch, they looked like a fairly poor side that scraped a result via a dubious penalty, and we just struggled a bit to break them down. Even with everything else going on with the club at the moment, it should be a win tomorrow.

Team News

New captain Fabregas will return to the side after missing out on the fun at the weekend due to suspension. Adebayor, Toure, Eboue and Walcott are all still absent, and Nasri and Diaby picked up knocks in training, meaning we’ll play god knows what formation. Ramsey started the last home Champions League game, and with Chelsea at the weekend and the load of shite that’s preceded this game, I wonder if Wenger will be tempted to make changes. Vela must seem tempting in Adebayor’s absence. I mean, even Arsene, who seems to have lost it, can’t have seen Bendtner plundering around in his luminous pink boots and thought to himself “That’s a quality striker right there”.

Gallas will be in the squad despite last week’s shenanigans, meaning Djourou will probably move to right back.

Subs: Fabianski, Hoyte, Gibbs, Merida, Wilshere, Simpson, Vela.