Fortress once more

By Boris Mellor
April 2 2010

Drawing at Birmingham might have ended Arsenal's title hopes, but we should know a lot more by 5pm this Saturday. At 12:45 pm Manchester United face Chelsea and at least one, if not both, of these teams will drop points. Of course it is more important that Arsenal win their game against Wolves, and if they do the race might take on a new dimension.

One bet I would make is that McCarthy won't play 10 reserves and roll over for Arsenal like he did for Manchester United. He will play a strong a team as possible, a team similar to the one that beat West Ham and Tottenham on their visits to London. They also drew 2-2 at Villa and are visiting off the back of an unbeaten four match run and they still have plenty to play for. They will need 8 more points to ensure they are safe from relegation. So this is not a game to be taken lightly.

Wolves had their feet up whilst Arsenal played in the match of the season midweek so they will be looking to see Arsenal tire. The Gunners will have to put the stupendous events of the CL behind them and concentrate on the Premiership, any hangover will cost them dear.

Injury list grows and grows

Bad news

At the Wolves pre press conference Wenger stated that Arshavin was out for a minimum of 21 days, but he could be back by the Man City game. Fabregas is out for at least 6 weeks, Gallas for possibly five.

Good News

Campbell will be available, as will Denilson and Clichy

Arsenal will fight on without Captain Cesc

Wenger believes he still has a strong enough squad to keep challenging on all fronts. It certainly will be tough, but Arshavin will hardly be a miss on his present form. Even Fab can be replaced by Nasri, but what concerns me is that we don't have much of an option in the striker department. We are struggling to score goals and are becoming dependent on penalties.

 Nik is a great target man but he has not yet developed to score lots of goals in top matches. He had a good game against Barca providing for both goals, but what he couldn't do is what Ibrahimovic did, score two goals. At a time when some were questioning the transfer fee for Ibrahimovic it was suddenly made clear why he was worth his fee.

The other area of concern is the centre back berth, can Vermaelen keep the defence solid partnered by two creaking third place stand bys, and a Cameroonian who can handle the Premiership in that position, but discovered that Barca inhabit a different universe.

None of this should be crucial against Wolves at home, but away at Barca, Tottenham, Wigan and Blackburn it could really matter. However one game at a time, so the team will have to forget about Barca and concentrate fully on Wolves, anything less than that and they could have serious regrets.