Today, three more key players will get a run-out in a closed-doors friendly against Reading at Arsenal's London Colney training ground. Their availability for the Champs League first leg next Tuesday could be absolutely vital.

Gael Clichy only returned to training last week, but is considered the most likely to be ready for Tuesday. The left-back problem is becoming a boring story, which has turned into a virtual farce with the use of poor Mathieu Flamini. I like Flamini a lot, and he's one of the few Arsenal players one has never been able to criticise for lack of effort this season. But left-back is not his position and he's been found out there in the game-and-a-half for which he has (why?) been preferred to Sebastian Larsson. Clichy has been out of action since breaking a bone in his foot playing for France U21s in November.

The other 2 players being tested today are Robin van Persie and Theo Walcott. Theo isn't injured as such, but the fact that he's not been used in a first-team game so far suggests that there have been doubts over his fitness. Robin has been out with a recurrence of his toe injury.

The desire for one of these players to be fit could become a necessity, if Jose Antonio Reyes doesn't recover in time from the bad bone bruising suffered against Bolton 10 days ago.

With Dennis Bergkamp unavailable for the usual reason, and Emmanuel Adebayor unavailable through being cup-tied, if we don't have at least one of van Persie, Reyes, and Walcott available then we'll probably be looking at using Freddie Ljungberg or Robert Pires alongside Thierry Henry up front on Tuesday.

Sol Campbell and Ashley Cole are reported to be unavailable for the trip to Spain, but we're not sure about Kerrea Gilbert and Pascal Cygan.