First, Lukasz Fabianski, who many were predicting would become Arsenal’s # 1 goalkeeper when he returned to health, hurt his thigh in last night’s Carling Cup fixture and will be out until after the international break in November. This was unrelated to his knee injury, so he wasn’t rushed back, just seems to be a random injury. Also, at present it’s kind of funny on the official site, which has a story entitled “Fabianski–I am so happy to be back again” just below the newest story, “Keeper Fabianski ruled out for 3 weeks.” That’s Arsenal in a nutshell right there. Wenger says he’s not sure who will start in goal on Saturday, but will decide after training on Friday. As I’ve said before, I hate this keeper by committee mess, and think Wenger needs to sort it out sooner rather than later. Competition for places is one thing, but having no idea who’s going to be in the net between one game and the next is detrimental to the team.

In “starting to become worrying” news, Fran Merida has yet to sign a new contract with Arsenal. His contract is up at the end of the season, and while he says he wants to remain a Gunner, he has already rejected one offer of a five-year deal. Several Spanish clubs, including Atletico Madrid and Sevilla, have been monitoring his progress and would no doubt love to have him in their set-up. He’s making a lot of progress, and I was happy to see him score his first senior goal last night. The fact that Wenger decided to keep him with the squad instead of letting him leave on loan is evidence that Wenger thinks he is a valuable asset and capable of contributing to the team. If he is patient, works hard, and continues to develop, he will be an important part of the senior set-up in a year or two. Speculating about the future is always dangerous, but screw it, let’s have a little fun for a second–can you imagine in 2-3 years a midfield of Cesc, Ramsey, Wilshere, Ramsey, Denilson, Nasri, Song, and Merida? All those guys look like they will turn into excellent players, and the thought of that group serving as a unit reaching their prime together is salivating. It’s encouraging that he says he wants to stay, but that’s what Flamini said, too, right up until he left for Milan. This bears watching, but hopefully we’ll get him back under contract soon. Also, I may be wrong on this, but due to his age, he’s not allowed to leave without compensation as long as we’ve offered him a contract, right?

Also, England boss Fabio Capello attended the match yesterday to get a view of Kieran Gibbs, who apparently put in an excellent performance. Gibbs seems awfully young to be representing England on the senior level, but has shown himself to be quite a player in limited action. And after Cashley, it’s not like England has an abundance of options at left-back. Gibbs may very well be better than Wayne Bridge right now, or possibly will be by the time summer comes around. And the fact that he can play right-back is to his benefit, as well. I can actually seem him making the squad and traveling to South Africa as kind of a fifth fullback/reserve defender type, who is handy to have around in practice and may never even make the bench for a game, but is good to have on the roster in case of injury. Wenger has backed him, and it would be a nice experience for the youngster, I hope he gets the call.

Finally, Phil Brown (pictured at right) was the subject of reports that he had been fired as Hull City boss a few days ago, but the reports were apparently wrong. He stays in charge for now, but all is clearly not well at the KC Stadium, and you’d have to think he wouldn’t survive a few more bad performances. I normally try to sympathize with managers under the gun, because they are often held to ridiculous, unrealistic standards by fans and ownership (Avram Grant was inches away from winning the Champions League, and got fired), but after “loogie-gate” in the FA Cup quarterfinal last season (you can read my original thoughts on it here), I have no respect at all for Brown, and won’t be sorry to see him go, I have to say.

The FA came out and formally charged Cesc with improper conduct following Phil Brown’s made-up spitting accusations. Look, not to go all Rafa on you, here, but here goes…

FACT: In the same interview where he accused Cesc of spitting, Phil Brown said: “He [Arsene Wenger] wouldn’t shake my hand when we beat them fairly 2-1 at the Emirates. He wouldn’t shake my hand when they beat us, fairly, 3-1 at the KC Stadium.” BUT photo evidence shows that he did after the 2-1 game at the Emirates. And video evidence shows that he did after the 3-1 game at the KC Stadium.

So we already knows he’s perfectly willing to lie to deflect criticism from the real issue, which was that his team lost a winnable game and is about to get relegated after being everyone’s darlings the first half of the season.

FACT: Phil Brown changed his story. Initially he claimed that it took place out on the field after the match. Then, when he realized that there were loads of still and video cameras trained on the action during that time, none of which showed any evidence of Cesc spitting at all, Phil Brown claimed that it took place in the tunnel after the match. He also initially claimed his assistant manager told him Cesc spat at him–later, Brown claimed that he saw it himself. I wonder if this is one of those “recovered memory” things, where you go pay thousands of dollars to a therapist so you can remember bad things that happened to you when you were 3.

Look, I suppose it’s a bit unfair to the FA to blame them for this. I’m an attorney, so I understand the importance of process, and a complaint was made so they have to investigate. I still would be stunned if anything came of this. But the fact is that it still serves as a distraction, and Wenger, Cesc, and other Arsenal personnel have to take time away from practice and preparation to deal with this nonsense. I wish there was a way they could just say, “well, objectively, Phil Brown is an untrustworthy liar, and there’s absolutely no evidence to back up these claims, so we’re getting rid of this.” And you’d think Phil Brown would have more important things to worry about, too–like, oh, I don’t know, making sure his little podunk club didn’t get relegated back to the Championship next season. I guess not.

In other stupid news, Nicolas Anelka himself has come out and said that Arsenal only aim for third or fourth place, and that they are not as big of a club as Chelsea. There’s nothing quite like being lectured on winning and ambition by a clubhouse cancer who only cares about money and can’t stay at any single club for more than a year or two before everyone gets sick of him and sells him on to the next unfortunate club. It’s also great that he’s been at Chelsea almost a full season and talks about it like he’s one of the reasons they’re doing so well. There’s nothing like coming in for way too much money, scoring a few goals at the beginning of the season against crap teams, and then acting like you’ve had something to do with the success.

The notion that Chelsea are a bigger club is also pretty laughable. You know why they’re “bigger” at the moment? Because they’re owned by an evil billionaire willing to treat the club as his plaything! Do Chelsea fans/players honestly think this is going to last forever and is a sustainable model for success? What’s going to happen when Abramovich goes broke or gets bored and finds something else to spend his money on? As I understand it, all the money he’s spent on Chelsea is technically in the form of loans to the club. In other words, the second he pulls out, the club technically will owe him hundreds of millions of pounds. Think about it–one person could essentially make Chelsea insolvent with a snap of his fingers. When that day comes (and make no mistake, it will come), that club is going to be in real trouble. Then come talk to me about what a big club Chelsea is. Especially in this day and age, when we’ve seen irresponsible borrowing and accounting practices bring down the entire economy, you’d think people would realize that Arsenal refusing to pay over the moon for players and making sure the club brings in more money than it spends isn’t “cheap” or “stingy”–it’s just being responsible. Tom Hicks is going broke and having to sell his share of Liverpool, Manchester United and Chelsea are both heavily in debt and spending money like Charles Barkley in Las Vegas–anyone who doesn’t think the way these clubs operate isn’t going to come back and haunt them is living in a fantasy world.

Also, I’ve said it before and will say it again, but I’m glad he’s such a d-bag. He was a rising star at Arsenal but wore out his welcome, and so was sold for £22.3 to Real Madrid. Wenger then turned around and spent £10.5 million to buy Thierry Henry from Juventus to replace him. Think about it–Thierry Henry cost less than half as much as we got for Nicolas Anelka. Can you imagine a better piece of business than that?

Middlesbrough preview tomorrow.

The goals from last night’s game. A nervous match, a hint of offsides on Gallas, I don’t care all that much. On to the semifinals.

A semifinal awaits the winner and I’m hoping that Arsenal gets revenge over Hull, who if you recall, won at the Emirates in the league this season. While their magic fairy dust has worn off a bit and things aren’t as rosy as they were at the start of the year, Phil Brown will have his players ready to give Arsenal a real go of things.

Team news, without a lineup, is as follows: Fabianski in goal, Arshavin in doubt although begging to play, Clichy might get a rest, Theo is in, Eduardo out and Gallas might be back in. Can’t tell the specific now, but I’ll post a lineup as soon as it’s up on the BBC.

Arsenal.com cruelly points out that Tottenham has won a trophy more recently, a cruel shot to any true Gunners fan. Here’s the best chance they’ve got to rectify these matters. Here’s hoping for a win and a semifinal against Chelsea at Wembley. Thoughts and comments below please.

Despite Hull struggling with form, it was obvious that another tough game would be in store for the Gunners, and the first 20 minutes delivered. Nothing seemed to be working, and the lack of a creative presence was felt once again. Fortunately, Van Persie continued his sizzling form — imagine how lost this season would be if he was his typical unfit self — setting up Adebayor with a lovely corner kick in the 26th minute. The Togonator obliged with a looping header that easily beat Boaz Myhill for the 1-0 lead. Right before that, the Dutchman sent a vicious free kick on frame that Myhill did well to parry over the bar.

The goal did well to energize the players and it should have been 2-0 with Eboue set up alone at the edge of the box. Unfortunately he could do nothing more than scuff the shot wide of the net. A 2-0 lead could have buried Hull, but as it was things were left at 1-0 heading into the half. At that point it seemed like a well-established lead, but when Arsenal is playing, you know that conceding a goal is likely. The dream of a shutout lasted until the 66th minute, when Gael Clichy decided that he’d rather be a spectator rather than a defender, lazily lifting a leg to deflect Bernard Mendy’s cross onto the head of Daniel Cousin. 1-1. At that point, with Chelsea, Man United and Aston Villa all winning today, a draw would leave Arsenal high and dry, looking shaky even for that Champions League spot — I know, a bit of an overreaction, but one that can easily be justified.

Fortunately for the Arsenal (and for Clichy), RvP kept up his hard work at the front. He drew the attention of three Hull defenders in the 82nd minute, spotted Samir Nasri wide open on the left hand side, and the Frenchman slid his shot into the net at the far post, and providing a sigh of relief to Gunners fans everywhere. A 3-1 result put the game out of reach when Van Persie collected a pass — and he was way offside — dribbled into the area and set up substitute Nicklas Bendtner to seal the three points.

These Arsenal games are almost stress-inducing for me — I expect them to take a lead, squander it, fight for ages, and of late, come away with a win. Yesterday’s victory not only keeps the team on pace with the rest, but it also allows confidence to grow in key players. Bendtner, for example, nets another goal, and should have had a second that rattled Hull City’s post in the dying seconds of the match. By the way, I can’t explain how I came across this, but typing in Bendtner is useless in Google yields 2,070 results. Fun fact for the day. In all seriousness though, the Dane only just turned 21, and if he can keep providing a strong attack off the bench, he will hopefully no longer be as useless. Keep the goals rolling, Nick.

Another key player to gain confidence? Adebayor. The big striker has struggled this season, and instead of missing heaps of chances and scoring goals in bunches, he’s only doing the former. The goal he scored today will give him something to build on, and he’ll hopefully get his groove back on.

The other two players — Nasri and Van Persie — are the two who this season hinges on as the season progresses (Note: this is assuming no transfer action is taken, which hopefully will prove false). Van Persie was a monster today, and his play has been absolutely stellar all season. He’s scored goals in big games (Chelsea, Liverpool) and had a hand in all three goals. Because this team has proven that it can’t defend well, scoring goals in bunches is vital, and he’ll be key as the season continues. Nasri is our only creative spark playing consistently out of the midfield. Diaby put in a much more solid performance against Hull, but strikes me as a frustrating waste of talent sometimes. I don’t know what it is about him, but he seems lazy on the pitch and reliant on fancy footwork to beat opponents. His compatriot Nasri continues to impress, and his cool finish at the far post today continues what has been a solid debut season for the Gunners. Keep in mind that this kid is only 20, and hopefully he’ll be a strong complement to Cesc and Theo for years to come. However, focusing on the here and now, Nasri’s influence on the left/center plays a vital role in the kind of offense this team trots out there. If he’s off his game, it is hard indeed to see where any kind of offensive spark would come from.

That’s all for now. It’s now three wins in a row and eight games unbeaten. The next league match isn’t until Jan. 28, with an FA matchup on Jan. 25 between now and then. I’ll link to highlights when they’re up (update: available after the jump) and quotes from Wenger are here.

Hull City v Arsenal