Arsene Wenger met with the press on Tuesday morning ahead of their game-in-hand against Sunderland at the Emirates on Wednesday night.

The Gunners know that a point will effectively seal third place and guarantee an automatic Champions League qualifying slot.

Set to be without Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Mathieu Debuchy, it had been hoped that Danny Welbeck would be back from his knee injury, a problem he was supposed to recover in time for the game against United. That doesn’t seem to be the case and we could also be without Laurent Koscielny who has ‘flu.

“We have an uncertainty about Koscielny (flu). I will know more after training because yesterday was a recovery day,” the boss told the media.

If it is actual ‘flu then there’s no way he will be able to play, however if it is just a bad cold then he might make it. There’s no reason that he needs to be pushed, however and we could well see Gabriel handed a rare start.

Wenger said that Danny and the Ox are “progressing well” while Debuchy will return to full training on Friday after overcoming the hamstring injury he picked up.

There are no other problems but we are expecting to see some rotation for the game with Theo Walcott and Jack Wilshere likely to get a start.