Colores de Verdad

One day till Chelsea and whilst tomorrow's opponents can welcome Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard back to the starting line up, Arsenal have been dealt a psychological hammer blow as they prepare for battle.

Robin van Persie was expecting to return to action in a few weeks, but it turns out the season ending predictions that were flying round the interweb almost as the injury occurred were pretty much spot on. The player himself is understandably pissed off, the early misdiagnosis costing Robin time in having an operation and beginning rehabilitation, his ankle ligaments need to be completely restructured. If the mistakes were made at our end, then you might expect heads to roll. But the club's statement seems to point firmly at the Dutch medical staff. If the diagnosis is 5 months at this stage, Robin must be sweating on his World Cup participation, and that is a hospital blow for a player who, as he acknowledges, was in the form of his life. And all for a meaningless friendly.

We have to forget about Robin and concentrate on the players we have and what is ahead for us now. On the way home yesterday evening, I saw the Evening Standard's back page featured Manuel Almunia saying something like "We will show Chelsea our true colours" and I thought to myself, yeah, is this where you reveal yourself to be something other than the goalkeeper who flops around like a fish on a line and is completely unable to command your six yard box? And then this morning I read an analysis piece by Jonathan Pearce acclaiming him as the most improved goalkeeper in the Premier League! I don't think so, but what do I know? Anyway, JP reckons that Arsène may indeed be saying, Hannibal Smith style, "I love it when a plan comes together" come 6pm tomorrow but it hinges on the A-Team (Almunia, Alex Song and Arshavin- of whom, more later).

The boss has challenged his team to put up or shut up, saying that their time has come;

"We just want to focus on the game like we want to play it. It is a big test, yes, but that is what you want, to play these teams. There is a period for any team to come out and show its strengths. For my team, this moment has come."

"We are not a team that has to be considered to be young any more. I think we have the strengths and we can show on Sunday that we are strong enough to compete."

I guess, as much for the psychological development of the team, whilst a draw wouldn't be fatal, a win would do so much for us tomorrow afternoon. The perception of the team is that they are so talented, but still with this glass jaw and a succeptibility to the football heavyweights. A home game against Chelsea who, let's not forget, have already lost on the road at Wigan and Aston Villa, would be such a fillip for us. A feature of this season has been the home teams winning the big clashes; Liverpool and United, United and Arsenal, Chelsea and United, Chelsea and Liverpool. It's a trend we need to continue tomorrow and if we do, then last week's defeat at Sunderland becomes less damaging to us.

Andrey Arshavin is a player who was also damaged during the international break- albeit emotionally and mentally rather than physically, with Russia's failure to qualify for next year's finals and it seems that he's having a hard time moving on. My initial response was that; with a flake in goal, the experienced centre back a doubt and two front line centre forwards out, this is the last thing Arsène needs to be dealing with ahead of tomorrow's match. And then I remembered that, as much as Arshavin is handsomely remunerated by Arsenal, he is his country's captain and, more than that, is probably never going to get a better chance to show his talent on the world stage. So I feel bad for him, but I also remember the way he reacted to being left out of the FA Cup semi final last season, which was to score 4 goals at Anfield. More of the same tomorrow would be good.

If he is unable to rouse himself, much of the responsibility is likely to fall on the shoulders of Cesc Fabregas. Lucky for us, he is- as the Gooner had it earlier this season- on fire at the minute. He spent the early part of the week hinting that he might like to stay at Arsenal for life and when he spoke to Football Focus, echoed a former captain with his "I love football" declaration. I love listening to him talk, he's always so level headed and that showed earlier in the week when he didn't react as might have been expected to the Liege player's head in his face. It seems manager and captain are two of a kind and the maturity that Cesc shows in dealing with the media really should serve as a lesson to those who would court the Catalan through that media.

Right, that's it. I was up till 5.30am and my head hurts. More tomorrow, maybe...