By Boris Mellor
December 25 2005

This is the great lack of confidence derby; both managers have described their teams as lacking in confidence. What a difference a month makes;

for in November Arsenal won all their league matches, plus winning two Champions League games and a Carling cup game. That was a total of six wins out of six games. Robin van Persie won the Barclay Footballer of the month award and everything was going well.

Then came December and an apathetic performance at Bolton, suddenly a team that Wenger believed was on track has, in some quarters, been described as in crisis. Hopefully the failure of December is an impostor, however it could prove that November was the real impostor. But Wenger believes that his team will strengthen and develop over the next few months. Although the team has lost three games Wenger argues that the Bolton game was the only one where the Gunners played badly.

He believes that the performances against Newcastle and Chelsea were ill rewarded. Nonetheless Arsenal have gone three games without a victory or scoring a goal in the league. Alan Curbishley may wish that he had only three losses to his name in the recent period. His team has lost six out of its last seven Premiership matches.

Of course some might argue it’s a good time to meet Charlton, however it could also be a bad time. For Curbishley must put an end to one of the worst runs Charlton have endured in the Premiership.

Therefore it is highly likely that Arsenal will face a defensive and resolute Charlton trying to prevent the Gunners from scoring at all costs, and this could be another tough physical match. At the time of writing it is not clear if van Persie or Thierry Henry will be available, they will have fitness tests on the morning of the match. Reyes is available but there is no sign of Ashley Cole returning at the present.

At his press conference Wenger was upbeat and believed that Arsenal will return to winning ways. Maybe December is the new November, if that's the case it could be a long one as there are three more matches to go before the end of the month, and two of those are away. Arsene will need to cure the travel sickness pretty quickly or that Champions League place could be a distant memory.

Not exactly the cheery Christmas preview I would like to write, but hopefully the team will rediscover its November form and get back to winning ways.

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all Arsenal Times readers.