Having lost twice this season against Manchester City, Arsenal will be looking to finally register a win over the side which beat them 4-2 and 3-0 earlier this season.

To make the task a little bit easier for the Gunners, midfielder Alex Song is back in the squad and will be joined by Croatian striker Eduardo, who unfortunately is yet to fully recover from the horrible injury he suffered in 2008. Arsenal will also hope Robin van Persie is fit enough to start from the first minute.

Speaking on Friday, manager Arsene Wenger also confirmed that Russian midfielder Andrey Arshavin will not recover in time to face the Blues but added how the 28-year old will be back for the away fixture at Blackburn, next week.

He said:

From last week’s squad we have Eduardo and Song back in the squad. Everybody else is still out. The short-term injuries like Arshavin, Almunia are still out.

[Arshavin] had a run today and I believe he will be available for Blackburn next week. We have good news about him – the tests today have been positive. He had a nasty calf strain and we had to be a little bit cautious.

Recently, we have had a bad history with calves so we were a bit cautious.