Diaby and Adebayor to help put Arsenal into the Box Seat

Arsenal beat Birmingham 2-0 at St Andrews, we played well and showed a good response from the West Ham game.

The West Ham game was not the best of days and the less said about it the better. It didn't help that Gilbert got injured and we were wasteful in front of goal.

It reminded me of the Leeds game back in 2001/2 which we lost 2-1 at Highbury. An error from Tony Adams that day let in Mark Viduka.

Does Sol Campbell need to take some time out like Tony did in 1998 to increase the longevity of this career? I don't know..

On Saturday Diaby drove on the midfield and gave Cesc a little more freedom. He added some power, height and muscle to the midfield. He helped to shield the defence. But more importantly he added dynamism.

Diaby makes runs into the box. Adebayor makes runs and likes to play in the box.

Diaby has only played 3 full games but he is exactly what the team needed. He offers something different, he is not frightened to take the ball and run with it, he wants to shoot and makes runs into the box in order to score.

Adebayor added physical presence and wants to take the ball to feet and hold it up. He wants to play high up the pitch and get into scoring positions. Cesc wants to be free and be able to thread killer passes. Together they can compliment each other.

A good indication of how well he has settled in and how good Wenger thinks he could be, is the fact that he has allowed him to play first team games straight away.

Wenger doesn't do that with many new signings.

Wenger seems confident Henry will sign a new 4 year deal. What a boost that would be.

It is well documented that Arsenal need to replace Bergkamp. Henry can be that man. I have always said that. Henry can play the killer passes. He has the composure, that extra bit of time on the ball. Henry has the class and can feed fast players because he once was that goal scorer, the man making that run at hyperspeed.

So it looks promising, with Diaby playing well in the middle, Adebayor another option up front, both unknown and offering us something different, that coupled with Cole and Gilbert to return from injury shortly and there's cause for optimism.

Strange given last Wednesday's debacle.

On top of that Toure and Eboue are set to bolster the squad when they return from African Nations Cup duty, which could be soon depending on how Ivory Coast get on against Nigeria this afternoon.

I fully expect the fluidity to come back and us to put together a strong run of results and cement fourth place. Starting at home to Bolton on Saturday.