Good news on Oxlade-Chamberlain. This is the period where Arsenal will show their quality…

Morning all.

The clubs around us at the top of the table barring Leicester, have enjoyed a good week in Europe, with all winning their fixtures comprehensively to progress further in their respective competition. None though faced an opposition in the class of Barcelona so as much as the media want to ‘big up’ their victories, it’s perhaps best for us fans to keep things in perspective.

I think it’s fair to say that when the 2015/16 campaign kicked off, the majority of fans wanted Arsenal to go all out to win the Premier League, perhaps for the last time under Arsene Wenger and that’s still achievable. As other clubs continue their fight on the European stage, it’s very likely, we’ll be left fighting for the FA Cup and Premier League. If we don’t beat Hull City on the 8th March, just the league title will be left. Meanwhile, Totts and City will be clocking up the miles in between league fixtures.

So all is not lost, despite losing on Tuesday night.

This weekend we face Man Utd who will be brimming with confidence after their 5-1 battering of FC Midtjylland, a team I’d forgotten existed until Utd lost to them a couple of weeks ago! No doubt LvG will think all is now rosy in the camp as the headlines calling for his sacking will be far away. Until the next time they cock up.

Perhaps for the Arsenal players, the Barcelona result should be forgotten, not the performance – well, the performance up until the crazy moment everyone bombed forward because up until then, they’d denied one of the best, if not the best attacking force in football, from scoring a goal. I know I’ve said it before but as much as they had chances, so did we and but for slopping finishing, we could so easily have caused a shock that night.

That’s how it’s been of late though and scoring goals, or rather a lack of scoring goals is a real concern. We certainly need Ollie to rediscover some form in front of goal, Alexis too and half the problem of late, especially on Tuesday was that our chances fell to the wrong players. Hopefully on Sunday, that’ll change, it has to at some stage of the season because we all know that Arsenal do score goals, just not enough.

We’ve just beaten the team at the top of the league and shown that we have the desire to do well and grab silverware at the end of the season. – Francis Coquelin

He’s right and the players shouldn’t lose sight of that. The team sitting pretty at the top of the table, a team who most other clubs in the league have struggled to beat, were beaten by Arsenal. It took a late goal, but nevertheless, three points were added to our tally and with them, we closed the gap to just two points between us and top spot.

Forget the Champions League, forget the return fixture in Barcelona and just concentrate on performing the best they can in the two domestic challenges left.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain won’t be involved in that challenge for a long while it seems as the injury he suffered on Tuesday is serious according to Arsene Wenger. He’s said Ox could be out for 2-7 weeks and that’ll please a few. He’s been awful this season. Hopefully his absence will see the return of Joel Campbell. Both Welbeck and Gabriel could feature on Sunday although the latter faces a fitness test over the next couple of days.

Sunday is a huge game, it’s a game we must win, they all are from now on but this is when Arsenal will show how good they are says Arsene:

We work hard for this period of the season. It is where you show your quality.

History would suggest he might be right….