The big news for the Arsenal ahead of this weekend's game against Wigan is the absence of six first teamers from the Arsenal squad - Alexander Hleb, Mathieu Flamini, Abou Diaby and Robin Van Persie are injured, Gilberto is fatigued from his exertions in South America, and Cesc Fabregas is suspended. Those are all important players, and Hleb, Flamini and Cesc have been Arsenal's best players this season, so it will be quite a test. Luckily, it's against Wigan Athletic. No disrespect to them, but they have been pretty dire this season.

So this means that the central pairing will quite likely be Denilson and Lassane Diarra. The former has been outstanding in the Carling Cup and in substitute apperances, and will be looking to pull the strings in midfield. The latter, a late summer arrival from Chelsea, has looked very promising in his substitute apperances, sometimes playing at right-back, sometimes in his favoured holding position. If Wenger is true to his word regarding the absentees for the game, then this will be the likely pairing in the centre, with Diarra getting a chance to show what he can do. Although Arseblogger feels that we just might see Gilberto starting this game.

The back 4 and goalkeeper should remain intact, and Emmanuel Adebayor will continue as the lone striker, so that leaves 3 positions up for grabs. There aren't too many candidates because os injuries, so it's likely that 3 of Emmanuel Eboue, Theo Walcott, Tomas Rosicky and Eduardo will line themselves up behind Adebayor in some permutation of 4-4-2, 4-5-1 or 4-3-3, or a Wengerish mixture of all of those. I think Eduardo might be ready for a start tomorrow, especially since Arsene reckons that his performance against England in midweek will have given him some confidence. There is an outside chance that Kieran Gibbs or Armand Traore might come into the reckoning, to provide some width on the left, but it's more likely that we'll see them on the bench.

The big news for the visitors is two-fold. Firstly, Emile Heskey is back in training and likely to be in-line to start now. That's not the greatest news, since he has the potential to be a serious thorn in our side when playing well, and let's not forget his power, pace, and ability to fall down like a newly-born calf in attempts to win penalties.

Secondly, and this is the sort of ridiculous news, new manager Steve Bruce will be travelling with the side, and starting with this game. Bruce, Heskey's former manager at Birmingham, recently agreed to make the switch after Wigan met Birmingham's contract demands, and should finally give the rudderless Latics some direction. This is not the ridiculous news, the ridiculous news is that the actual move of Bruce from the Brum to the Latics was delayed over an image rights bonus issue (which eventually cost Bruce about £100,000). Now anyone who has seen Steve Bruce, will be wondering excactly why he was receiving an image rights bonus, especially since those are generally kept for people like David Beckham and Fredrik Ljungberg. I'm sure you know what i'm getting at... if not, then see below (not intending to go after Bruce in any way, he seems like a nice chap, but it's all quite weird):