Arsene Wenger is quoted as saying, "I consider Thierry to be out for six weeks and that anything less will be good news for us. Ideally we would want Thierry out there. But there came a time where we had to decide whether to keep going like this with him struggling or for him to take a complete break."

This comes on the back of the news that Wenger admits he thought about signing a striker before the transfer deadline, but decided that what we had already would do the job. Well, that theory's going to be put to the test now, and by better teams than Middlesbrough. Reyes has been playing well but while Bergkamp's still looking good he's not looking like scoring many goals. For goals we need Pires and Freddie on top form, and for van Persie to play enough to get into his stride. There are slight doubts over the latter, after a training ground incident today that saw him floored by a crunching tackle by Eboue before having a bit of a shout at the young right back and then having his right leg strapped up by Gary Lewin.

Wenger says that this will be a "good opportunity for the youngsters to show how good they are", and that could mean Lupoli and/or Quincy.

Six weeks out for Henry would mean him missing the first 3 Champions league games, as well as Premiership matches against West Ham, Everton, Birmingham, West Brom, and maybe Man City. Could be worse, I guess. We're lucky that there's an international break in the middle there.