The striker has a foot injury apparently picked up during the Southampton game on Tuesday. He was still feeling it in training today and so Wenger has decided not to risk him. He's also been withdrawn from the France squad for next week's game against Belgium. But it's said to just be bruising so we're hopeful that he'll be ok for the big premiership match at Stamford Bridge next weekend.

People will preumably be asking whether we can show that we're not a one-man team. We know that we're not of course: the goals have been coming from all over the place this season. But the fact the Thierry scored both the dodgy goals on Tuesday will only encourage the questions. If we do fail up front though, it won't just be because we're missing Thierry. We've got 4 other key attacking options unavailable to us as well!

The good news is that Dennis Bergkamp returns from a calf injury, but he'll have to play with Jose Antonio Reyes since Wiltord and Aliadiere are both injured still, and Kanu hasn't returned from the African Nations Cup yet. The 4th of those unavailable options is Freddie Ljungberg who has a chance of making next weekend's game but won't be fit for this one. So if another striking option is needed it could be that Robert Pires will be called upon (like he was on Tuesday). David Bentley will probably be on the bench.

At the back, Keown is injured and Sol Campbell faces a late test on a groin problem. So it could be Cygan returning to partner Kolo at the back.

Chelsea still have doubts over Carlo Cudicini and Hernan Crespo. But both are optmistic that they'll come through late fitness tests. Damien Duff is definiyely out with an achilles problem, and Desailly (calf) is a doubt.