For the love of everything holy, give me some proper football

As you might be able to tell from today's title, I'm very much looking forward to proper, non-international-against-piddling-little-teams football tomorrow. With the Arse looking for their first Premiership win of the season it's a big game against traditional home whipping boys Middlesbrough. Of course the Emirates probably still doesn't feel like home to the players or us fans, but I'm still confident of a result.

Here's the side I would hope starts the game tomorrow. With Djourou likely to miss out due to the injury he sustained against England U21s on Wednesday, Gallas looks a dead cert to start in his preferred centre half role, rather than left back. Justin Hoyte havs been given a fair run in the side so far this season in both the Premiership and Europe without impressing, so I'd like to see the Flim Flam man back in at left back, although it's very likely that Arsene will persist with Hoyte. The rest of the back four picks itself.

In midfield, despite others giving Freddie a fair amount of praise so far this season I'd rather see Helb and Rosicky on the flanks. Now that Pires and Reyes have both left we do have a real problem in that we don't really have any true, byline-hugging wingers (although I think Walcott could find himself playing there a fair bit rather than up front), and both Alex and Tomas both have a tendency to drift inside both with and without the ball (and Freddie does too). We really need Fabregas and O'Silva be more dominant in the centre with our own players (let alone the opposition) and let them know that they need to keep wide.

Up front Thierry and RvP both performed very, very well for France and Holland respectively on Wednesday, with Henry netting and Robin bagging a brace, and I think this international form is good enough for both to start. A lot of people are hankering to see la Bestia unleashed, but I'm fairly sure he'll start on the bench, and if and when he does come on I'm still not convinced as to where he'll be playing, midfield or up front.

With the bench comprising five of Aluminum/Poom, Hoyte, Freddie, Denilson, Walcott, Baptista and Adebayor, that's a decent level of depth to call on if needs be.

In other news Michael Carrick is talking about almost joining Arsenal rather than the Spuds from West Ham two years ago. Quite how this is news seeing as we all knew this already is beyond me, and I can only imagine it's coming up because we've got Man Yoo next weekend.

Ashley Cole is claiming that his move to Chelsea has nothing to do with money. Seeing as he fell out with Arsenal over £5,000 that his agent told him he'd been offered, then swore he'd never play for another Premiership side, he can fuck off, the lying scumbag. It's a nice piece by Matt Hughes, who paints Cashley as the unprincipled simpleton he really is.

Football tomorrow. Come on you Gooners.