Arsenal Latest Ahead of Braga and Fantasy Football Update

The weekend's football eventually finished last night as Stoke beat Aston Villa 2-1 to claim their first points of the season. Villa had a chance to move up to third in the table if they had won but despite taking a first half lead they couldn't hold on.

It means that the top of the table has a very familiar look to it with Chelsea, Arsenal, and "Manure" occupying the top three places, although the appearance of Blackpool in fourth place is a shock to all but their most fanatical fans.

As the season is now in full swing, we will see Champions League games tonight and tomorrow night, followed by Europa league games on Thursday night. It also means that we have live football on the TV six days and nights a week with Friday being the only day that we aren't treated to it.

For an amateur pundit like me, that isn't easy as I try to balance how much football I watch with not wanting to end up in the divorce court for neglecting my wife and kids. Oh, to do it all for a living and not have to spend all your spare time trying to find something Arsenal-related to write about while trying to work, play football, and interact with the family (the odd drink or two may have to be taken as well).

Enough of my petty troubles and on to the more important business of how things are going in terms of my fantasy league that I'm running in conjunction with 11Gunners.

From my own perspective, my team made up a little more ground but it's still a long way back. It wasn't helped by Chelsea deciding to rest both Alex and Malouda and then bringing Malouda on for the last seven minutes to claim a solitary point while I had Charlie Adam sitting on my bench with 13 points in his pocket ready to propel my team up the overall rankings by a further 200,000 places.

I did manage to move up 100,000 places and I'm now just outside the top 500,000 but there's a long way to go in my own league where I am in 279th place out of 705 teams. Here's a look at the top 10 teams in the league and the league itself is ranked 87th out of 205,000 leagues.

1	DUO's Gunnerz	David Okere	54	277
2	RipRoarinReds	Nick Williams	64	274
3	Bles FC	Ben Sloane	45	271
4	Mercenary Wanderers	david rose	46	264
4	Harry`s army	Daniel Messina	56	264
6	outlawz FC	beck outlawz	40	263
7	Leave-Ma-Arcelona	Gurdeep Jugpal	38	263
8	Pedster Academy	Tony Pedley	55	262
9	MahindraUtd	Ankeet Mahindrakar	50	261
10	The Gooners	arup mukherji	54	260

We should hear from the boss later today when he has his pre match press conference and it will be interesting to hear what he has to say about Diaby's injury that he picked up after that dreadful challenge on Saturday.

I'm hopeful that he won't be out for too long, but with the injury problems that he's had for the last four years since the Ramsey-style injury he got I suspect that we may not see him for a while. If he's not available it means that either Wilshere or Denilson can expect to be in the team from the start  and I think that Wilshere is the most likely candidate.

I would imagine that Braga will look to hit us on the counter-attack as they did in their victory over Sevilla. I watched the highlights of that game and I was very impressed at how fast they broke forward and how well they were able to pick the right passes at the right time in those breaks.

They did look a little dodgy at the back to me and I think we will score a few goals, but I also think we will concede too. For me the key will be for Arsenal not to over commit too many players in attacking positions and keep our defensive shape at all times whether we are winning, drawing or losing.

I'll miss the first half of the match myself as I'll be playing football but I'll make my way to the supporters club for the half time cocktail sasauges and chips hopefully before watching the game with the rest of my fellow Wicklow Gunners.

So far, this season every Arsenal game has been live on the TV here in Ireland and that will continue against Sunderland on Saturday and the Spuds the Tuesday after that which gives us plenty of opportunities to meet up for games, have a beer or two and discuss our favourite topic—Arsenal.

Arsenal's reserves make the trip north to play Man City's reserves tonight and they have had a pretty good start to their season with two wins in two league games and nine goals scored. It will be interesting to see what team plays tonight as quite a few of them can expect to play against the Spuds in the Carling Cup next week as the boss will look to rest first team players in a competition where he always gives youth a chance.

Speaking of youth, I forgot to mention last that the youth team lost 1-0 to Bristol City last Saturday in the league and they haven't had a great start to their season with only four points from their first four games.

That's the lot for today but I'll preview the Braga game tomorrow and hopefully I'll have it ready at an earlier time than most of my recent posts.

See You Tomorrow.