The options, assuming that Justin Hoyte isn't recalled from his loan spell at Sunderland, include playing Pascal Cygan at left-back. More likely is that Lauren will be switched to the left and Emmanuel Eboue brought in on the right. Eboue's been given the odd substitute appearance and it seems probable that Wenger will welcome the opportunity to give him a proper test in the Premiership. It's possible that he'd be played on the left himself, but it probably makes more sense to use the more experienced player out of position.

Apart from Clichy and Cole, our only injury is to Alexander Hleb, who is expected back from his knee injury in early December. Perhaps we should be grateful that Clichy's the only players that's come back from international duty with an injury. Freddie Ljungberg is back from injury and, if fit and fresh, could provide a major boost. Which 2 or 3 gets to play out of Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp, Robin van Persie and Jose Antonio Reyes is likely to be a mystery for every game. They're all capable. What would make the most difference to Arsenal's season, in my opinion, would be to have Freddie and Bobby hitting form (and good health) on the wings.

At the start of the season we'd have been thinking of the trip to Wigan as a bit of a banker. But they're second in the table on merit, not having lost since the first 2 league games of the season. They've won 8 of their last 9 games, and all of the last 6 (including 5 clean sheets). But the Arsenal game comes at the beginning of a tough run for them because after playing Tottenham they've got trips to Liverpool, Chelsea, and Man United coming up soon. Let's hope we can beat them but without demoralising them for those games! Despite their good record this season, one still has to try to be optimistic and see this as an opportunity to give our away league form a much-needed boost.

Latics boss Paul Jewell has a couple of injury doubts: a hamstring injury to defender Steve McMillan who'll be given a late fitness test, and another hamstring for striker David Connolly who'll probably only make the bench. Also, Josip Sloko has been given the day off after travelling the world for Australia's (successful) World Cup qualifying play-off against Uruguay.

Rupe adds...
So much for my Lauren theory. Arsene Wenger is quoted on Arsenal.com as saying that either Kolo Toure or Pascal Cygan will play at left back, but he won't say which. I'd been counting Toure out partly because I was expecting Philippe Senderos to be rested after his hard-fought (literally!) matches against Turkey. But, of course, there's always Cygan. My guess is that Kolo and Pascal will both play, it's just a question of who plays where. Emmanuel Eboue has a groin problem which he should be back from in a few days time, so that full-back option should be available again for the next game.