Good Saturday morning all and one.

All things Arsenal rumble on, as ever.

I have no idea what I mean by the above, but to start rambling and time-wasting so early in this morning’s blog is a bad sign.

So anyway, we’re back in action tomorrow at Reading, and the general consensus is that our hosts will offer us the kind of challenge we probably need to convince us, and everyone else for that matter, that we have a decent chance of competing for the title this season.

I think we’ve proved that we’ve made massive strides already (witness our 1-0 in Manchester), but have we moved away from our calamitous days (witness our 0-1 in Manchester)?

I’m confident we have, as with Gallas and Rosicky in our side we have added mettle, and we’ve got key players coming back too – Clichy in particular.

But still, Reading have competed very well against the top teams so far, and you can be sure they’ll want to knock one over us tomorrow. There’s also the added pitfall of having played 1,760 miles away (and three hours into the future – I think that’s how international timezones work), something that rarely goes in your favour.

Personally, I’d like to see Clichy return at left-back, and I have a sneaking suspicion he may do so, even if he doesn’t last the 90 minutes. With him at left-back and Gallas and Toure in the middle, four out of our five first-choice defenders will be playing, and come November 11th (Eboue’s return date, apparently), we’ll have all five. A settled defence with solid backup is something we’ve not had for some time – and I think it will be a massive help.

It leaves some tricky decisions for Wenger, of course, especially with Senderos, but it’s a situation that’s better to have than to not have.

And as for poor Lauren – you have to fear for his place. He’s apparently out until the new year, and if Eboue continues to make the kind of strides he has been making, Lauren’s going to have a job on his hands.

That’s me done.

Ta-ta.