Koscielny's got the eye of the tiger

When I woke up this morning, I woke to news that Laurent Koscielny was set to miss the rest of the calendar year- that's year, not season- as a result of the head injury he sustained against Fulham. Oddly, by the time I have to come to write my latest blog it is, in fact, Johan Djourou who will be sitting it out when Arsenal take on Partizan Belgrade tomorrow night. Clearly Koscielny's head is so hard Rocky Balboa would be jealous of it.

The news on Djourou is that he has a slight thigh problem and should be back in time for next Monday's trip to Old Trafford. I guess we should take any injury update on Djourou with a pinch of salt, but it's not lost on me that, indirectly, I've got my wish of Djourou being rotated out of our midweek team selections. Elsewhere, it appears that everything is at is was at the weekend, but we can look forward, if that's the right choice of words, to the return of Mr White Tights to the first team squad. The lengths this guy has to go to get himself noticed, eh? Yes, dear reader, after years of internal, and external debate, this observer has come down against Emmanuel Eboue: his admittedly amusing antics (sometimes) and ability to dribble. Mainly because he doesn't have the ability to do anything else. I think when we look back on the "Eboue years" we will wonder just how he managed to get away with it for so long, I really do.

That's got you nice and riled now, hasn't it? So let me take that a step further and tell you that I won't be able to watch the game live tomorrow night as it's my boss Randall's leaving do and I really can't miss it. Yes, I am missing our must win match to go to a Spurs season ticket holder's leaving do and he's not even leaving till January 14th! Yes, being an insecure Spurs fan- I'm not sure which came first, Spurs or the insecurity, he's worried that if he has a leaving do two weeks into the new year, it'll be just him, the barmaid, a jukebox and several bottles of Magners. So it's tomorrow. Don't worry though readers, a while ago Jo was given a pile of Chas n' Dave vinyl records and we think they'll make an excellent leaving present for him. Tonight, I go to the O2 to see britpop legends, (no doubt, they'd love to see themselves described thus) Suede. I'm quite hopeful that the fact south east London is still sprinkled with snow will not prove the barrier to an evening's live music that it was last Tuesday.

Having only been to the Arsenal, at the time of writing, four times this season, I have to say I'm surprised to find myself heading to the north London enormodome 3 times in the space of the next month. A month which is almost certainly going to be pretty frosty. Tickets for Stoke next weekend were already in the bag and I'm all set for Chelsea to ruin my Christmas on the 27th of this month. Actually, whisper it, but I think this fixture represents a great chance for us to start reasserting ourselves as London's top team- do I keep saying that every time we play them?. This morning, I got my tickets to see Leeds in the FA Cup, a £47 bargain. I've had a bad run with the team at home this season, but if we can't win that one, then we might as well all give up and go home. I don't think I can put into words how much that particular game means to me, not now anyway.

I was intrigued to read yesterday Arsène Wenger's comments that Alex Song has started foraging so far up the pitch as a tactical strategy to try and open the pitch up for us. It could be said, I suppose, that Arsène is just covering for one of his players, but I don't think that's the case in this instance. I've given Song some stick for not focussing enough on protecting the defence, but that does ignore the fact that whereas he was the holding player last season, he's now been joined in that role by one of Wilshere or Denilson and so there is now scope for one or the other to go and join the attack. I guess my problem with that is that I'd rather see Wilshere doing what he does best,which is going forward and creating, with Song the proverbial "immovable object" covering the defence. That and the fact that Song does tend to get ahead of the ball a bit too often for my liking (unless he scores, I like it then). If, however, they can organise themselves to provide proper defensive cover, then perhaps there is the potential for interchanging a la Petit and Vieira. Which gives us, in my opinion, a greater tactical flexibility then we have if opponents know Song is just going to "SIT!" But it does rely on on the pitch communication and players making the right decisions quickly.

You can see the potential in it, but whether it's the right kind of potential... well, time will tell.

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