Ahh man am I hanging this morning. Like, PROPER hanging, which is what booze will do to you. A LOT of booze.

But what always sobers the mind is an Arsenal game and so as I hazily stab at my MacBook this morning (as I start today’s blog it is technically morning, what with there being about eight minutes before the midday chimes ring out) I am wondering what type of footballing flavours Unai Emery and his charges are going to be serving us up today.

Will it be the slow-cooker style stew that ensures we have to wait until the second half before we all get to feast on the delights of goals from our lads? Will it be a deliciously rare steak that needs only but a few minutes of sizzling before we can enjoy in the shape of a quick first half? Or will we just get some overcooked vegetables that disintegrate on our metaphorical spoons in the form of a draw or defeat to Wolves on our home soil?

Who knows. Who knows what Arsenal will show up but also what line up the goes for, because if there’s one thing you can’t label Emery’s Arsenal as, it’s predictable.

we’re anything but and your guess is as good as mine as to who starts against the midlanders. We can piece together some parts of the starting XI I reckon; Leno in goal, probably Hector and Sead Kolasinac as full backs, but that’s pretty much it. Holding could come in, he could opt for Sokratis and Mustafi, or perhaps the German himself misses out?

I suspect the midfield duet of Xhaka and Torreira will be given the nod, but who goes in front of them is just a half-decent estimate. With Auba playing 75 minutes on Thursday due to Welbeck’s injury he could drop to the bench, but I think he’ll go with the Gabon international as well as Lacazette and Ozil too. Mkhitaryan and Iwobi both played on Thursday so one of them will probably be asked to do the business wide right and if i was to have an educated guess I think I’d be going for the Armenian. Neither Iwobi or Mkhitryan really did enough to suggest they absolutely must start today, but with Reiss Nelson not being recalled despite his goalscoring exploits yesterday (not that I think he should, I’m just saying…) and Welbeck being out for an extended time, one of the two will get the nod due to the sheer fact that Unai’s other options are limited.

He could opt for Ramsey wide right, because we’ve seen that down the years under Wenger, but Unai hasn’t deployed the Welshman in that position to date so I don’t think it’ll be the case today. It does feel like Ramsey is being slowly phased out and that kind of makes sense given the fact the contract is now off the table.

So with the game today we have many different options to choose from but it will be far from a walk in the proverbial park against a mid table Wolves that have surprised a lot of teams this season. Last week they could have got a bit of a historic fightback against the Totts but it wasn’t to be and that should serve as notice to us that there’s a bit of fight in this team. Wolves are a good side and with Ruben Neves as their main man in the middle of the park and dangerous on set piece delivery, we need to make sure we’re up for this game today. It’s all very well talking up the unbeaten run and looking at games like Liverpool last weekend, or the Totts in a few weeks, but if we don’t approach this game properly we could easily end up with a bloody nose.

But Arsenal under Emery feel like they have a bit more grit about them this season and the players themselves have talked up their belief even when they go behind. Xhaka said so last weekend – that the players new they would get back in to the game even after falling behind – so to know that there is that level of confidence emanating from the squad is a positive thing.

But the team still have to do the business and that means we need to control today’s game, we need to pin Wolves back and we need to not be sloppy at the back. We will give chances away – we all know that – but we need to make sure we are potent in the final third.

I’ll be sauntering along to the Tollington to give Dave a bit of support as his new book is launched today so if you’re there give me a shout. I don’t think i’ll be having a beer though given my consumption last night.

Well, maybe just the one then….