By Boris Mellor
January 27 2007

Wenger has said he needs to rest Fabregas very soon, I hope he doesn’t rest him against Bolton. The Trotters will be looking for a draw, or snatching a lead and holding on to it. They are a hard team to break down and Arsenal will need all the imagination they can conjure to beat them.

Bolton may have shipped five goals last week, (Boro are their bogey team) but I don’t expect them to do that twice in a row (But I will enjoy being proved wrong). All the statistics show that teams who suffer heavy defeats do not succumb in exactly the same way the following week, usually only conceding one or zero.

Fabregas could rest on Wednesday when Gilberto can play again. In many ways Gilberto will be missed more in this match than against Manchester United. Bolton might try and play football, but they may also try the rough stuff; Anelka and Davies are a tricky partnership to deal with. Gilberto could have cut off their supply route. Last year we were losing 1-0 with minutes to go when Gilberto equalised.

If the game was at the Reebok the Trotters would be cockier, but Bolton have won only once in their last seven visits to Arsenal, and that was in an FA cup fourth round replay in 1994. Arsenal are in far better form than they were when they last played Bolton. Meanwhile the Trotters are as bad as they were then; inexplicably the Gunners restored Bolton’s confidence. So form often goes out the window when these two teams play.

Arsenal are without Emmanuel Eboue, Djourou, Gallas, Ljungberg, Alex Hleb and Robin van Persie, while keeper Manuel Almunia will play in place of the rested Jens Lehmann. Meanwhile Gilberto sits out his final suspension. (By the way did you hear Sparky bemoaning the rough tackling on his little Savage?)

Arsene will be stretched in terms of the bench, it’s the bench that often turns games, as Manchester United did against Portsmouth, this Saturday, with Rooney, and Arsenal did against them with RvP. If we get stuck will Baptista (assuming he doesn’t start) be able to deliver? A big question, and if he answers it he could be on his way to becoming a permanent fixture. But at all costs Arsenal must avoid the draw, we could do without fixture congestion with our injury list.

The likely line –up:

Almunia, Hoyte, Toure, Senderos, Clichy, Walcott, Fabregas, Flamini, Rosicky, Adebayor and Henry.

Substitutes from: Poom, Aliadiere, Baptista, Traore, Diaby, Denilson and Randall.

Don’t forget to enter your predictions on the table.

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