I expect Wolves to play with a congested midfield, especially narrowly. The forward passes of Cesc along with the movement of Van Persie and Walcott will be important. When Cesc is on his game then the rest of his team mates are usually on their game because of the captain’s influence on the pitch. Without Samir Nasri we are going to need Cesc to take a step forward and find his best form, hopefully the midweek rest will have allowed

As weeks go, this is a massive week in our season but that is pretty much how every week is from now on. Every game that turns up is of vast importance. A common new saying is that Wolves is bigger than Barcelona and I can only echo those sentiments. Remarkably we closed the gap at the top whilst stretching our advantage over Chelsea. We have to forget about what happened against Newcastle and concentrate on keeping tight and disciplined in our approach to games. The last thing the players need to do is to have the impact of last weekend affecting our performances from now on, it is time to roll our sleeves up and forget all about what has happened in previous matches this season.

It is down to us to return to our aggressive forward game both offensively and defensively. It could be very easy to look the Wolves league position and assume that all we have to do is turn up and take the three points in 1st gear well if the players have that attitude then our home record will add another home shock to go with those against West Brom, Newcastle and Tottenham.

Wolves have already beaten Manchester United (thank you Wolves), Chelsea, Manchester City and Liverpool so when it comes to the big matches they have the ability to raise their game. We had to put on a top showing to grab the three points at the Molineux back in November.

We have a good looking squad going into the game. Alex Song returns from a thigh strain, Cesc Fabregas has recovered from his stomach problems and Van Persie has gotten over his bout of flu. The big worry of the week was concerning Johan Djourou but the fears that he damaged his knee ligaments proved just to be scare mongering. He actually bruised his knee and has recovered in time to face our opponents this afternoon.

I personally hope we save Djourou who has been very impressive since coming into the side. If we play as a unit and defend as a team then the partnership of Squillaci and Koscielny should be more than good enough to keep the likes of Kevin Doyle under control.

Apart from the potential caution of Djourou, I would fully expect Arsene to select his strongest possible line up which would give us the attacking rename of Theo Van Arshegas.

Mean Lean’s Predicted Line Up

One to watch: Cesc Fabregas

I expect Wolves to play with a congested midfield, especially narrowly. The forward passes of Cesc along with the movement of Van Persie and Walcott will be important. When Cesc is on his game then the rest of his team mates are usually on their game because of the captain’s influence on the pitch. Without Samir Nasri we are going to need Cesc to take a step forward and find his best form, hopefully the midweek rest will have allowed him to recharge his batteries for these two very important games this week.

Mean Lean’s Match Prediction

Arsenal 2 (Arshavin, Van Persie [pen]) Wolves 0

Hopefully Manchester City can do us a big favour at Eastlands, even a draw would be a great result for us but regardless of what happens in that game we need to do the business at our end and that means only victory will do.

COME ON YOU MIGHTY REDS!