We will have to wait until around half past two next Saturday to see if Arsenal come away from Old Trafford in top spot on the Premier League table, which we will if we take all three points from our game against Manchester United. For now, though, we can only look ahead to the match and after a couple of Gunners picked up injuries while on international duty after the Gunners were held to a draw in our last game against Tottenham there seems to be quite a lot of negativity around Arsenal at the minute.
I can understand that to some extent as we do seem to be getting hit with the same old bad luck on the injury front, but I think we have a lot of reasons to look forward to our next match, especially as our opponents Man United are in a much worse situation than we are.
While Jose Mourinho and his players have been struggling to find some decent form and consistency, Arsenal have been doing well and a draw in the north London derby is far from being a disaster or even a shock. Add to their poor form and the growing pressure from unhappy fans the fact that United´s own preparations for next weekend have been hit by problems.
They were already without their main striker as Zlatan Ibrahimovic is suspended and they have their own injury crisis to deal with and that has just become worse with Sky Sports reporting that Chris Smalling has a broken toe. The England centre back joins two more of United´s first choice defence, Antonio Valencia and Eric Bailly, in the treatment room so even though Arsenal´s injury list is longer I think that our situation is better.
So should Arsenal fans stop worrying and start looking forward to the trip to Man United?
Sam P.