I’ll start with two footballing stories, the first is about Gary Cahill who is off to Chelsea next month so that will please most Arsenal fans other than me, the second is that Wayne Bridge could be joining us on loan in January after being told he no longer required at Citeh as the club are fed up with paying him £90k a week for him to play golf on match days.

Ok, this is most of the red tops making this assumption but if Gibbs is going to be out for a while yet, this kind of deal is right up Mr Wengers alley!

One other story to make you laugh and that’s Citeh are looking at Eden Hazard after Na$ri has failed to convince he is good enough, be funny if he got moved on so soon and for half the amount they paid us for him…..

The last one is Suarez, he’s been found guilty of making racist comments towards Patrice Evra and the FA have awarded him an eight match ban and a £40,000 fine, bet John Terry is a worried man…..

Anyway……..

Off to Villa Park then for our second away fixture in a just a few days, can’t you just tell it’s the festive period? It’s the time when games come thick and fast and as usual, injuries come with it for us.

For once though, we face a side who appears to be suffering in that department nearly as much as us. Our injuries are in defence, where as Villa’s are up front.

Long term Gooner, Darren Bent is out injured for tonight’s fixture, as is Emile Heskey and I’m glad, especially about Bent – he ruined our final day of the season earlier in the year with two goals in our defeat at The Emirates. Other injuries for them are Chris Herd and James Collins but the bad news for us is, Gabby Agbonlahor returns after serving his ban.

For us, Johan Djourou joins the ever-growing list of injured defenders and Alex Song has to sit this one match out having picked up his fifth yellow card against the rich kids.

History tells us that for the last 13 years we have dominated this fixture, in fact we have to go back to December 1998 for our last league loss at Villa Park.

From the six fixtures in which Villa have faced sides who sit above them, they have won just four points. Out of the last five played, they have lost three, so we face a side who truly are down on form and who have managed to score just two goals during that rotten spell.

Our goal scoring machine just needs the one goal to match Thierry Henry’s calendar year record set back in 2004 and if he could nab himself a hat-trick tonight, he’d be level with the all time record set by Shearer in 1995.

In fact, this year, RvP is more prolific in front of goal for club and country, than Messi!

Sundays loss was the first time we have failed to register a goal since the second game of the current season but I can’t see that continuing tonight.

Unless of course, Arsene Wenger see’s this as a game where he can afford to ‘rest’ our top scorer – I sure as heck hope he doesn’t, we need three points tonight and the best way to get them is with Robin van Persie up front causing all sorts of problems.

Despite scoring in this fixture last season, we don’t need this guy anywhere near the side tonight in my humble opinion, we need him to stay fit and ready to be sold off in the January cattle market!

The Pratt in The Hat......

Seriously, we have seen enough of him, let Yossi, Park, Chamberlain, anyone get their chance, this guy has shown he is no longer interested in being a part of Arsenal, so why carry on with him?

We need players who are prepared to turn out on a cold winters night away from home and give their all and we have them, but Arshavin isn’t one of them.

Tonight we need a good solid performance, get back to winning ways and put Sundays little blip far behind us…

Don’t worry about the rest, look after ourselves and head into this busy festive period thinking only about tonight’s first three points of many to come……

Have a good day all…….