He has been suffering with the hernia for some time, and Arsene Wenger had already been following a plan of resting him from time to time. Playing through the pain had been pretty successful on the pitch. Cole had a particularly good game at Ajax on Wednesday, but the pain worsened after that game and when Arsenal medical staff examined him on Thursday it was decided to get straight on with the operation.

He will definitely miss our next 2 Premiership games, against Charlton and Blackburn (he was already missing the first of those, this Sunday, because of a 1 match ban because of having picked up 5 yellow cards this season), plus the FA Cup quarter-final against Chelsea and the next Champions League game at home to Roma the week after next. He could well still be out for the final Champions League group game in Valencia.

Giovanni van Bronckhorst is certainly an able replacement, and has already put in some good performances at left back this season, but he's probably stronger going forward than in defence.

For the Charlton game we are also missing Lauren (suspended), and Luzhny is not back from injury yet. So the right back slot is more worrying. Kolo Toure is a good bet, but full-back is probably the weakest of the positions he's been used in so far. Charlton are on a roll, so we can't assume that the defence won't be much-tested.

Vieira is also banned for a match on Sunday so Parlour (or maybe Edu) is likely to play instead. The good news is that Ljungberg could be fit enough to play a part at last.