Quite simply, this is a game in which Arsenal have to win, if we truly believe we have any shot at the title. Everyone’s allowed a blip, it happens, but when the blip turns into a tidal wave of turgidness, then you’re never getting near that shiny trinket with a gold crown on top.

We’ve been pretty poor of late in the league, some of it down to injuries potentially disrupting the flow of the team, some of it due to poor player performance if we’re all honest with ourselves. But with November behind us and on home soil, we simply have to beat Sunderland. No ifs, no buts, just the three, thanks.

Points that is, of course, although with Jermaine Defoe out and Sunderland sure to set up to frustrate, I’d be a wee bit surprised if we didn’t win by scoring three goals, so that would also be nice too. 

We need to get back my on track. We have the Mackems, the Greeks and then some Midlands-based Villans. All games are eminantly winnable, but we would have said the same about our last two away games, showing that with The Arsenal you never quite can call anything a ‘banker’. So we need to get a win today and even with the ever-mounting list looking worse with the news we probably won’t see Santi until March, I’d still like to think we have enough to get a win, even if it is The Walrus managing the opposition today.

If Koscienly is back it would mean our strongest back four and if Flamini can do a decent enough role marshalling the space in front of the back four, that should give us enough cover for the likes of Ramsey and Özil to support the attack a little more. Rambo has the sort of engine that Santi cannot provide and who knows, perhaps with Flamini besides him it will provide a better foil than if Ramsey was lining up alongside Santi. Think about how Cazorla was the string-puller to Coquelin’s ball winner. With Rambo and Flamini, somehow having the two in close proximity to each other doesn’t feel as ‘right’ to my untrained eyes. Maybe Arsène can stumble across something today?

Our opponents will set up with a back five, Cattermole as the clobbermesiter in front of them and look to use the aerial threat of Fletcher to cause us problems. If Koscienly makes it, between him and Big Per we should have enough, of course my emphasis is on the word should, because as I said above, we have the better technical ability even with all of our injuries. 

What we will finally get to see, a good few years after certain Twitter ‘ITK’s prophecised, is the arrival of Yann M’Villa on the Emirates turf. He’s looked OK in patches in what I’ve seen, but strikes me as the type of player who looks alright in a good team and ‘okayish’ in an average one. I know I’ve probably just put the hex on us for him to score a couple of screamers now, but like Catchphrase, I have to ‘say what I see’. He’ll probably slot in alongside Cattermole and be another ball winner. If Sunderland do play with a back five and those two, we’re already up to eight of the 11 who will be defensive-minded players, so scoring early could be a god-send for us. It would force Sunderland to come out a bit more with a collective of defensive-minded footballers set up. 

Last season Sunderland needed a point to effectively stay up and as a result, threw every body part at the ball and also had a bit of luck along the way, so in terms of domination and chances I’d still expect us to get a fair few. The trick will be to put those chances away. 

We’ll just need to make sure we don’t get our noses bloodied by the likes of Johnson on the counter or Lens, who I’ve seen rifle a couple of good ones in since he arrived at the Stadium of Light. If we keep them camped on the edge of their own box though, it’s only our concentration that will let us down, famous last words of course!

We need to have a good December. December could see us top of the league come January if we can avoid defeat and beat City I think, so whilst we’ve been disappointed in November, the festive season could have us full of cheer and good spirits. But Arsenal need to start now.

Come on you reds!