van Persie will play his last game until the 22nd of November, presumably partnering Bendtner up front. Adebayor, Eboue, Gallas and Walcott all miss out through injury

Good lord, it goes from bad to worse. I don’t really know what to write about at times like this, it’s all a bit too bleak. The result on Saturday reminded me of the game away at Sheffield United in the 2006/07 season. Ridiculous team selection, abject performance, terrible result, and a sign that the season ahead was going to be fairly shambolic. We actually managed 21 points from our first 11 games that season, as opposed to the 20 we’ve scraped this time round. And that season we finished 21 points off the eventual winners. There’s always time to turn it around though. But I don’t think any of us have any hope of a result on Saturday.

Right then. Bad times. League’s down the pan, let’s focus on the Champions League for a little while. It’s round two of the battle of the terrible defences, Arsenal and Fenerbahce.

A win in this game pretty much sees us qualify for the next round. We’d have ten points, and in the other game, if Kiev win, Porto wouldn’t be able to catch us and we’d already be qualified with two games to go. And given the league fixtures we face in the next few weeks, having the ability to rest players in the Champions League games knowing we’d already qualified would be no bad thing. Our best results and performances have come in Europe this season, so let’s hope we see a continuation of that tomorrow. After the week we’ve been subjected to we could do with a win, and ahead of the biggest game of the season so far, a win, albeit in an unrelated competition, would help to stop the rot a tad.

Team News

van Persie will play his last game until the 22nd of November, presumably partnering Bendtner up front. Adebayor, Eboue, Gallas and Walcott all miss out through injury, the latter two could return for the game at the weekend. Adebayor is out for three weeks. Sagna will play after recovering from the knock he picked up against Stoke.