Fulham v Arsenal Preview.

Arsenal will be looking to grab the first win of the season and get up and running in the Premier League. The loss last weekend to Aston Villa at home was a disastrous game for the Gunners, giving away two penalties and having a man sent off. We will be without the suspended Laurent Koscielny but have a renewed confidence after an excellent win away at Fenerbahce in the mid week.

Fulham on the other hand will be looking to push on from their opening day victory away to Sunderland, Martin Jol would have been hoping to face an Arsenal side lacking in confidence but our European exploits saw to that. He knows his team is capable of threatening Arsenal, with attacking players like Berbatov and Bryan Ruiz.

Overall this should be a good contest but I can see Arsenal pulling out a close victory. We won’t fall into the same mistakes that plagued us against Villa last time out. There’s no doubting Fulham will be dangerous but they won’t pose a huge threat to the Arsenal goal.

Arsene Wenger is still not sure as to how many players will be deemed fit from their midweek battle in Turkey, with the Gunners already treading thin water in terms of squad size. Long term injuries to Mikel Arteta, Alex Oxlade-Chemberlain and Abou Diaby has forced Wenger to use Jack Wilshere for two full 90 minutes in back to back games, who is likely to be tired after coming back from a long lay-off.

 The Gunners are exploring the possibility of signing Mathieu Flamini on a free, who is currently training with them and are also considering a renewed bid for Newcastle midfielder Yohan Cabaye after having a £10m bid rejected.

"The news is quite positive at the moment. Of course we have some players who I will need to consider because of the accumulation of the international game and then the Premier League and Champions League matches. I will have to make a deeper analysis tomorrow and on Saturday morning," Wenger concluded.

Wenger also refused to comment on whether former midfielder Mathieu Flamini would be rejoining, stating that he is only training with the club, but the Frenchman insists Arsenal are still a draw for players.

"Yes I'm confident that we'll make the signings we need because of the desire of the players to join us," he said.

"There's also the fact that while we maybe don't have as much money as everybody writes, we have some funds available to do transfers.

"We've worked on it very hard but it hasn't come off as quickly and as well as we wanted.

"You'd be surprised how early we acted. In our job you can spend a lot of time, not going on holiday and work on things without it coming off.

"In football you have to deal with any situation and be patient. As long as the window is open, anything can happen until the last minute."

 Big match stats:

• Arsenal won the most points from Premier League London derbies in 2012-13 (19).
• Only against Manchester United (17) have Fulham lost more Premier League games than versus Arsenal (16).
• Fulham have won just three of their previous 24 Premier League games against the Gunners, but all three of these victories have come at Craven Cottage.
• There have been four red cards given in the last three Premier League meetings between Fulham and Arsenal (two each) at Craven Cottage.
• The Gunners have been given more red cards in the Premier League since the start of 2012/13 than any other side (6), including Laurent Koscielny’s dismissal in the opening game of this term.
• The Whites attempted just one shot at goal (excluding blocked) in their opening day win over Sunderland, but this shot from Pajtim Kasami decided the game.
• Darren Bent has scored six goals in his last eight Premier League games against Arsenal.
• Arsenal have not lost their opening two matches of a Premier League season since 1992/93.
• In 2012/13, Arsenal did not win in the league until their third game, after drawing the first two 0-0.
• Fulham have never won their opening two matches of a Premier League season. The last time that they won their first two league games of a season was in 2000/01 in the second tier.
• Following his goal against Aston Villa, Olivier Giroud has now scored 12 goals in the Premier League for Arsenal. However, just one of these has come away from home.