Arshavin will come back into the side after sitting out on Tuesday, hopefully looking a bit fitter than he did against Sunderland. The team won’t be too different from the one that failed to score against Sunderland last weekend

It’s odd, earlier in the season we were scoring plenty of goals, but it was our defending that let us down. 4-2 up against Spurs, 1-0 up against Liverpool, 2-0 up against Villa, 1-0 up against Middlesbrough all ending in draws due to poor defending, wins in those games would currently see us in third place, one point off second. In an earlier part of the season we scored thirty nine goals in thirteen games. Now it’s the opposite, eight clean sheets in the last eleven games (we haven’t conceded for nearly 500 minutes of football), but more than one goal scored only three times during that period. And now we are in a position to set a record of consecutive league games we’ve failed to score in under Arsene’s management. We last drew five games in a row fifteen years ago. If we could just get the attack and defence working at the same time fourth place would be less of a seemingly impossible task. I was watching the Newcastle Everton game last Sunday, hoping for a Newcastle win so that it’s less likely Everton will catch us. I also thought, at least we should be comfortable in the UEFA Cup places, as hopefully United will beat Tottenham on Sunday adding another European spot in the league, and if the FA Cup final is between two of Arsenal, United, Chelsea and Everton, that’s another European place that goes to the league. It doesn’t feel right thinking that.

We can still get fourth but the way we’re playing at the moment it just doesn’t seem like a likelihood. We need Villa to slip up, badly, or for their team to eat some dodgy lasagne. Their next six games are Stoke (h), Man City (a), Spurs (h), Liverpool (a), Man Utd (a), Everton (h). They’re certainly not going to get maximum points from those fixtures, and in the same time frame we’ve got Fulham, West Brom, Blackburn, Newcastle, City and Wigan. This is the period where we really need to catch up, there’s only six games left after that. While we’ve not exactly brushed teams like those mentioned aside this season, you’d hope we’d be capable of picking up more points than Villa during this period. Six points more? Probably not, but maybe we can at least apply some pressure on Villa. There’s no pressure at all at the moment, they’ve slipped up twice in the last three league games and still ended up actually extending their lead over us. They’ve lost their last two domestic games, losing in the league for the first time since early November, and were knocked out of the UEFA Cup during the week. Maybe/hopefully their confidence could have taken a bit of a dent.

In their current eight season stint in the Premier League, we’ve only failed to beat Fulham three times in fifteen meetings. However, two of those occasions were losses, a 2-1 loss at Craven Cottage the season before last, and a defeat with the same scoreline at the same ground at the start of this season. During that time we’ve won six of the seven home games. We won this fixture last season on the opening day, after Lehmann had given Fulham a headstart. Fulham have never beaten us at our home ground.

Fulham have not won a single away game this season and have only scored three goals on the road in the league. They have, however, managed more goalless draws than any other team this season. Could we be looking at a fourth in a row? They’re also one of the eleven teams that have scored as many or more goals at home than us. Fulham have only won three of their last thirteen league games and currently sit eighth in the table. If they win they could go up to seventh, only nine points behind us with a game in hand.

Team News

Arsenal

Adebayor is still unavailable, he could be back in the squad for the game against West Brom on Tuesday, as could Eduardo. Theo isn’t far away from a return either, and Rosicky is now only two to three weeks away. Fabregas is still around a month away. Diaby is available despite being substituted due to injury against Roma.

Arshavin will come back into the side after sitting out on Tuesday, hopefully looking a bit fitter than he did against Sunderland. The team won’t be too different from the one that failed to score against Sunderland last weekend. Diaby could keep his starting spot as he offers something different from central midfield, but it depends how fit he is following two injuries in his last two appearances.

Subs: Fabianski, Djourou, Song, Ramsey, Eboue, Wilshere, Vela.

Fulham

Fulham currently have no injury problems. How nice for them. They’ll probably line up as they did at Old Trafford a few weeks back, flooding the midfield. I’d take the result they managed then, 0-3. Pantsil is suspended so Stoor will probably take his place.