Afternoon all,

nothing like having a brilliant player back in the squad for derby day on a nice sunny evening is there? The news that Robin van Persie is back in the squad is encouraging, the boss sounding really positive over his fitness after a good six months on the sidelines since having his ankle ligaments snapped against Italy in a pointless international friendly.

In his press conference earlier Arsene said:

He will feature. He’s in the squad, yes, for tomorrow’s game. It’s a bit premature (for him to start) but we’ll see. I haven’t picked the team yet.

“There’s always a gamble, I won’t deny that, in such kind of decisions. But in Robin’s case we have been a bit more cautious because he’s been out so long.

“The biggest gamble I took was Gallas. Fabregas wasn’t a massive gamble. But Gallas was coming back from a muscular problem. With Robin, it was a joint. He’s a very important player for this club. He’s very important for the confidence of our offensive power. He can give a final ball, score goals and is good on set-pieces. The sadness was that we lost him very early in the season. Nobody knows what difference he might have made, but I’d have loved to have had him for the whole season.”

My money is on van Persie coming off the bench with 60 or 70 minutes gone, he can’t be fit enough to start the game and Nicklas Bendtner has done brilliantly in his absence. Its simply not fair on Nicklas to be dumped back onto the bench or shifted out to the right hand side, he has earned his starting spot and it says a lot when Eduardo and Vela aren’t even being considered for his starting spot – as much for their lack or form as the Danes impact on the team, he gives the players a target and does score important goals.

I completely agree Wenger saying that the season could be a whole lot different had Robin been available for more than just two or three months, before he was injured we were scoring at an average of over 3.2 a game, since his injury we have been scoring at an average rate rate of something like 1.6 goals a game. A big difference.

He adds not just goals, but a different option from set pieces and a lot of assists too, he had turned into a truly brilliant player in the ten to twelve months coming up to his injury, one of the very best and his goal return at the start of the season reflected that. He is one of the players who can score our of nothing – like he did against Spurs, Fulham and Man City early on in the season.

The defence will be boosted by the return of Sol Campbell who is certain to face some disgusting abuse on his return to White Heart Lane as an Arsenal player… it was bad at the best of times but in the red and white its always been terrible. He will rise above it though (Gael Clichy agrees), and be an important part of the team tomorrow.

The manager was also glowing in his praise of Sol Campbell who has played far more games than anyone thought, and performed well on the whole. Speaking of his effect on the team he said:

“Sol has been a big, big support for me and for the squad. He’s very important in the dressing room, highly focused and motivated. Every time he played he turned in a very good performance.

“It’s one of the good signings I made. He will play tomorrow. I didn’t imagine he’d be playing as many games as he has when I signed him. I thought he might have one or two games for us, and not as many as he has. But he’s played well.”

He left the club under a cloud but since he has came back he has looked every much as big a fan of the club as he has been a player, the celebration against Stoke after Cesc’s penalty and Vermaelen’s goal will be long remembered. He really, really wants to win this title and his move across the divide all the years ago now proves he is a born winner.

There have been some noises around that Andrey Arshavin is set to leave the club in the summer, I’ve been one of the people that think its a possibility as something just does not seem right at the moment. However, his agent (and Ive been told he is definitely still his agent) Dennis Lachter, has said:

“This is the first time I am hearing about this speculation. We haven’t spoken about this at all, he is an Arsenal player. I firmly believe he will be at Arsenal next season.”

Can we trust Lachter? After the transfer its hard to and I think there is truth to the speculation that Arshavin tried to ditch him after the move but he is having none of it and wants the contract honoured… does he want to leech his client for one last payday? Lets see what happens. I hope he stays and shows his full talent on the pitch.

We still don’t know about Alex Song’s fitness ahead of tomorrow, all the news on him is under an embargo until 10.30pm tonight so we should know then, I’ll probably update this post.

Til then.