Looking at this weekend's fixtures we could see a little bit of movement at the top of the league - but the big fun must surely come with the televised lunchtime game today of Tottenham Hots v West Ham. The tiny totts have already lost once at home and the hams have already won away so you never know... Tottenham (tipped by the media to seriously challenge for something this year but I can't quite remember what that was, and the media won't let on) are ninth, and WHAM are 12th. They must be so grateful for the likes of Everton, Ipswich, Palace, Southampton and Wolverhampton, inevitably and reliably at the foot of things.

The BBC website today is saying that Arteta is hoping for some positive news out of one or more of Kai Havertz, Ben White, Jurrien Timber and Oleksandr Zinchenko. We've already suggested that Havertz should play, but as for the rest, we are still waiting on any information. But amidst the gloom we are probably in the last week of our captain being laid up - he could be ok for Liverpool next Sunday, which would be rather jolly.

Yet let us never forget that Odegaard's injury was caused by a lunatic and utterly unnecessary international game. Thankfully with the clubs now finally realising who has the power and who are the hangers-on, there is a real resistance building to the insanity of Uefa and Fifa competitions, just as there is growing resistance to ManC's approach to football. Untold certainly can't predict the future but there is a fair chance that this could be the closing of an old era and the opening of a new one.

English Super League (with no Manc) anyone?

But of course it has been international week yet again, (mostly because every third week or so is international week) and there is another one on the horizon, so we are now unsure about Bukayo Saka who had to go off in England's utterly pointless game against Greece. I think clubs ought to refuse to pay the players' wages when they are out injured as a result of an international.

Speaking of international nonsense, Gabriel Martinelli could be missing today because of his time in what the media insanely call "nternational duty". It is not a "duty". in that it is irresponsibility plain and simple. Yes if I want to take advantage of living in England, then yes I have a "duty" to pay my taxes. But players do not have a "duty" to play internationals. That is a myth created by the FA to excuse stealing the best players in the country and handing them back broken. Players choose to risk injury playing internationals. No one forces them to.

But on the brighter side Thomas Partey is back. Martin Odegaard isn't. "International Irresponsibility" rules supreme.

Back to the game - I was mentioning before how poor Bournemouth have been of late but the BBC tellus us that Bournemouth "have recorded 115 shots this season, behind only Tottenham (123) and Manchester City (136)."

Anyway, moving on, the current 16 game run without a defeat (that is counting across all competitions of course, so it includes the league cup and the end of last season) is "Arsenal's longest unbeaten streak since a run of 22 matches from August to December 2018 under Unai Emery," which in turn means that at this moment "Arsenal are one short of becoming the second club to record 2,000 top-flight wins." Only the rather dubious Liverpool team have already done it.

Coming up next - 100 years since Chapman arrived, and the team.