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Thierry Henry has a neck injury and is ruled out of the
visit to Bolton Wanderers tomorrow (kick off 5.15, live on pay-per-view). According to Arsene Wenger on the
official site, he's expected to be ok for the trip to Fulham on Wednesday.
In a way, it's good timing. Henry has been off form and we've
had some good results without
him this season. Of course, you always want to have a player
of his class available, but it does at least give us a
chance to try 4-5-1 without him again before the Porto game
which he'll miss because of the booking picked up
on Tuesday.
With Robin van Persie missing through suspension,
it's hard to see past Emmanuel Adebayor starting alone up front. But, as the natural
successor to Henry and on the back of a match-winning substitute
appearance in that game against Hamburg on Tuesday, I'm
sure I'm not the only Arsenal (or England) fan that'd like to
see Theo Walcott in the role tomorrow, for at least some
of the game. More likely, if available, is Theo and Alexander Hleb on the wings and either Freddie or Baptista in a central midfield role supporting Adebayor.
Arsenal have failed to win on each of the last 4 trips to the Reebok,
and were something of a bogey team last season with wins over us
in the league
and the FA Cup
(and we only just scraped a draw in the league
fixture at Highbury.
William Gallas and Tomas Rosicky are both also injured, making
Phillipe_Senderos and Freddie Ljungberg likely starters
again. Freddie could lose out to Julio Baptista though. This is just the kind of game you'd like to think the Beast could have a big impact on, though perhaps not yet.
Gilberto is likely to come back in for Matthieu Flamini. Lauren and
Abou Diaby are out till the new year. Jeremie Aliadiere could get a precious place on the subs bench.
Bolton skipper Kevin Nolan returns, after missing the loss to
Everton last weekend to see his child being born. Prior to that
he'd missed 3 games through suspension, and the Trotters lost all 3.
Left back Ricardo Gardner
is back playing for the reserves after being out for 7 months with a
knee injury, but Sam Allardyce may see the Arsenal game as being a
bit too soon for him. Quinton Fortune is also back from injury and
more likely to feature having got on the bench for the Everton game. Watch out for former Gunner Nic Anelka, who's not scored in the Premiership yet this season, so is bound to notch one up
against us.
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