Morning all.

Here he is. The man heavily rumoured to make a move from the Scottish PL to the English PL and join us in January.

Virgil van Djik....

Virgil van Djik….

Nearly every newspaper believes VirgilΒ is the Β£7 million man wanted by Arsene Wenger in January! The 23 year old Dutchman stands 6′ 4″ tall which is great, but is he ready for Premier League football?

Ray Parlour says yes:

Van Dijk would be a good signing. Arsenal look really short at the back. Koscielny is out now for a little while, which is another blow.

Arsene is just hoping he can get through to January. He’s got to go out and buy a couple of defenders. He needs to strengthen if they’re going to have a serious run on the Premier League title. You need to have a big squad.

It’s Saturday, the PL returns and we kick off at 3pm at The Emirates!

Last night saw the return of both Theo Walcott and Serge Gnabry albeit for the under 21’s. Who cares, it’s playing time and both of them needed it. Theo made it through until half-time, Serge played on for a bit longer and as far as I know, both are fit and waking this morning. Abou Diaby also returned after suffering a little hip problem. None will be involved today of course but Mikel Arteta will be. He’s back and raring to go, well, he’s back.

Around five months ago, we huffed and puffed are way past Hull City in the FA Cup final. They hit us hard from the off, stunned us with two very early goals and to be honest, I didn’t know if we had enough in us to get the two goals back let alone a winner but we did. Somehow we did.

Apart from Alexis, Welbeck and β€˜the never played’ Joel Campbell, our squad for today is pretty much the same, perhaps weaker with the absence of so many players. Ozil, Koscielny and Calum Chambers who serves a one match ban, all miss out. Hector Bellerin and Isaac Hayden are expected to be in the squad as both missed last nights game. Both young, inexperienced in the Premier League but no doubt chomping at the bit and quite excited at the thought of playing at home in front of their own fans. Will they both start? Somehow I doubt it, in fact rumour is Francis Coquelin might fill the right back position. If he does, then perhaps that’s because Wenger believes him to be more experienced, allowing Hayden to stand tall alongside Mertesacker in the middle.

Meanwhile, Hull City present a very different side to the one we faced at Wembley, they are stronger after Steve Bruce had a busy summer transfer window signing Hernandez, Ben Arfa, Ramirez, Diame and Ince. They can brag about having thirteen international players on duty over the last fortnight and I think that’s more than us!

I hope they all return feeling like Sterling did midweek for England……

But, for all their international players and new signings and looking a lot stronger on paper, Hull have had a similar start to the season as us. Since the opening day of the season, they couldn’t buy a win until just before the international break when they defeated Crystal Palace, the rest have pretty much been draws with a couple of defeats thrown in.

Nikica Jelavic and Mohamed Diame are the players to watch out for. Between them they have notched up seven goals which is about as many we have managed as a team!

Can’t say I’m overly confident about today, despite the history books suggesting this game has a home win written all over it.

The experienced players need to step up today, they need to show maturity, discipline and lead by example. If Bellerin and Hayden do start, they’ll need their calmness and togetherness around them. Don’t leave them exposed and don’t let them be the fall guys. Go out as a team and play as a team. Defend from the front when needed and let’s see pace, width and a lot of passion going forward.

Enough of the draws, it’s time to start scoring more goals, getting more points and putting in a much more solid performance.

Starting today!!

That’s it for today, let’s hope its a great one for Arsenal FC…