We find out team news from Mikel Arteta today, so we’ll know what we’re dealing with when it comes to tomorrow’s opposition, Sunderland, but I wonder what Mikel is thinking from a tactical perspective?

From a fitness point of view, the news we have all unofficially heard is that Saka is out until probably the Spurs game, which is a real pain in the arse because as much as Noni was good against Leeds, I do worry about his consistency. He’ll get an extended opportunity to impress this time around, so let’s hope he can continue to add some G’s and A’s to his positive tally from Leeds. Odegaard too is supposedly a bit of a doubt, but we’ll have to see what Arteta says in a bit. It might be a good opportunity to give Eze a set of starts so he can start to build some momentum as we reach the crunch point in the season. I thought he showed some positive signs in the League Cup game in midweek, including sliding the ball in for what should have been a penalty on Martinelli. Let’s hope that if he does start tomorrow, he’s getting back to the earlier season form that saw goals against Palace and the Scum.

Sunderland are a weird team. Imperious at home, the opposite away from home, with the kind of metrics that make the data nerds blush. They are massively out-performing in terms of team form, but things like goals scored has them second from bottom behind Wolves with just 24 all season. They’re fourth from bottom on shots on target this season, they’ve conceded more shots than anyone bar West Ham and Burnley in the league, they put the second-fewest crosses in compared to any other team, they have the second-lowest xG for….I could on forever, baby…

What they have done well at is clean sheets. This is a well-drilled side. And, as we saw ourselves at The Stadium of Light earlier in the season, they have a playing style that is physical and industrial; they have no problem going long and deep into your box, which I expect we’ll see tomorrow. It’s also how they got their first goal against us earlier in the season, then they used their other weapon – the strength and physicality of Brobbey – for their equaliser in injury time.

Arsenal and Arteta will be well-aware of what they are coming up against.

Their fans are understandably feeling themselves. Lots of talk on the message boards of cheeky away wins, plenty of them predicting a draw, not a lot of chatter about a possible defeat. I can understand that; they have had a great season, they beat Burnley comprehensively on Monday, they’ve basically secured their place for next season with their home form, so there’s an element of ‘free hit’ about this one. For Arsenal, that is certainly not the case. We need this win. This weekend feels like it could be massive, and with us going first, there’s a real opportunity to open up a significant lead at the top. We haven’t quite been able to get there yet, though. What I mean by that is that it feels like every time we get six or seven points clear, we have a slip-up, so what I’m hoping for from this weekend is that we do our job, Liverpool do theirs, so we can start to feel like a bit of a buffer is appearing. If that happened this weekend, it would start to also feel like a psychological barrier would start to creep up between us and the rest, too. But every time it’s felt like we might start to pull away, something has gone against us. For example, the Liverpool game, the Forest game, the United defeat – each of those felt to me like ‘the moment’ in which we would pull away. Yet each time we’ve been dragged back to the chasing pack. Arteta must be very clear with his lads tomorrow – we need to handle OUR business.

The pundits clearly favour us too. Lewis Jones on Sky Sports goes with a 2-0, Merse goes with the same scoreline, Sutton reckons it’s 2-0 as well, although all of these pundits do acknowledge that this will be a tough one for us. It’ll be a hard watch, too, I suspect. For Sunderland a drab 0-0 would be perfect to take back to the North East, so they’ll play with a deep, low-block, they’ll congest central spaces and metaphorically say to Arsenal “go on then, break us down, because we’re not moving”. Then, when they do have the ball, it will be long and up to Brobbey to have himself a battle with our big two stoppers at centre half. I’m already not looking forward to this as a spectacle.

And do you know what everyone will say? “Man, Arsenal are not fun to watch”. Sorry, but it’s the other side you need to focus on guys, because it’s difficult to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, and we get sows’ ears regularly trotting their way on to the Emirates pitch against us each week. You bring a fight to us and we’ll show you a good game. And if you don’t, then don’t complain to us when we nod one in from a set piece.

Right, I’m off to have some lunch, so I’ll catch you tomorrow when we know more detail about the team news. Speak then.