Having failed to maintain an important lead against Aston Villa just as we did against Spurs, we need to put the match behind us and focus on tomorrow’s home match against Tony Adam’s Portsmouth. Having lost all their three previous Premiership matches, Pompey will be looking for a good result so as not to get closer to the relegation zone.

It may sound as an easy match, but you can never say with this Arsenal side. What is important in these type of matches is to score early else they may end up to be a very tough nut to crack. I did watch them against A.C. Milan in the UEFA Cup this season and I was impressed, but they did crash out of that eventually so they do lack in consistency. Peter Crouch will be a man to be careful of as he did punish us in the past when he was wearing the Liverpool shirt.

Liverpool are away at Newcastle, Chelsea away at Fulham, Manchester United at home against Boro and finally, Aston Villa are away at Hull. I have a feeling at least two of them will drop points so let’s just try and take advantage if that takes place. Title race or not, we have to understand that a lot of things may happen from now until the end of the season so let’s just keep the faith friends.

With Nasri not enjoying his best moment, why not shuffle the cards and try something new with Vela in his preferred wide position? Clichy is a doubt so better not risk and Sagna deserves a rest, at least for the first 45 minutes, Eboue should do more than fine in his natural position. Ramsey should come in for the injured Song and would be nice to finally see Wilshere getting a start. The line-up I hope for is therefore:

This is what Tony Adams said on the match at the Emirates:

It’s difficult regardless of our current form but we’ll try pick up the pieces. Arsenal have a good squad but we’ve got to patch things up on the training pitch and try get a result on Sunday. John Utaka’s got another injury on his thigh and Younes Kaboul took a direct hit on his injury, but we’ve got to throw them out to get on with it.

Finally, Arsene Wenger’s comments:

We have to keep the belief that we have because out of Villa, Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool, only Villa beat us at home. I believe we have improved in those last two months tremendously. We look much more solid. We do miss a bit of belief I think, but we are still young as well.

As always, tune in for team line-ups, half time and full time reports, post-match thoughts, video highlights and what the press is writing. And of course, do contribute if you want to by making use of the comment box available at the bottom of the post as it’s always nice to hear your opinion.