Arsenal set to go top of the table

Guy Hodgson looks ahead to the weekend's football

When Arsene Wenger perused Arsenal's position this week and in his best Jim Callaghan manner queried "Crisis, what crisis?" you could see his point. True, he did not know the team he is to manage was about to go out of the Uefa Cup, although he probably suspected it, but in League terms at least the club look to be in the rudest form of health.

A club with the classic ingredients for relegation - internal strife and an ageing back four - find themselves in third place in the Premiership and if they defeat Sunderland at Highbury today they will go to the top, albeit until Liverpool and Newcastle play tomorrow and Monday respectively.

The last time the Gunners topped the League was 7 November 1992 and in the interim they have jettisoned two managers and had enough drugs and drinks stories to keep EastEnders going for months. The portents were hardly bright when Pat Rice assumed control on Stewart Houston's departure but if they get three points today he will be able to hand over the managership to Wenger on Monday with a 100 per cent record for three matches.

Not that Sunderland will be the pushovers they might have appeared when they were among the pre-season favourites to be relegated. They have won their last three matches, and although two of those were against Watford they have revealed themselves to be difficult to beat even if they do not score many goals. To that end the absence of their record signing, the pounds 1.3m Niall Quinn, for a month with damaged knee ligaments is a significant setback.

It has not taken Ruud Gullit long to sound like a manager. When the Dutch master assumed control at Stamford Bridge last summer the talk was of beautiful football, a concept reinforced by the signings of Frank Leboeuf, Gianluca Vialli and Roberto Di Matteo. Two heavy defeats to Liverpool and Blackpool in a week, however, and his language was pure Tommy Docherty.

"It's not enough to have only quality," Gullit said as his team prepared to meet Nottingham Forest. "You have to combine it with passion and the will to win the game. If you don't have passion you can't perform." He will be yelling at Leboeuf to "put it in the mixer" next.

Which is something Everton, who face Sheffield Wednesday at Goodison, have never been afraid to do under Joe Royle, particularly when Duncan Ferguson is doing the mixing. This makes the injury to the Scottish striker particularly unfortunate because the mood is changing on Merseyside if the radio talk shows with supporters are anything to go by.

Suddenly the manager is being questioned which is extraordinary considering that one and a half matches into the season they had beaten Newcastle and were 2-0 up against Manchester United at Old Trafford. Since then their season has plummeted to the point they are without a win in eight matches and were knocked out of the Coca-Cola Cup by York on Tuesday.

Wednesday have that sinking feeling themselves after following up four successive wins that took them to the top of the Premiership with five matches without a victory. They also have fitness anxieties with David Hirst and Mark Pembridge out and several others doubtful.

Their problems pale into insignificance, however, in comparison to Coventry and Blackburn, who might have hoped to be involved in a six-pointer at this stage of the season given their financial outlay over the last two years but did not expect to have the word relegation prefixed to it.

Locked at the bottom of the table, that is, as Wenger might have said, a real crisis.