Arsenal will be without midfielder Jack Wilshere, who serves a one-game ban following his sending off at Manchester United.
Wojciech Szczesny is nearing a comeback from an ankle problem and could be in the squad, while Aaron Ramsey and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain face fitness tests.
Fulham will assess Mahamadou Diarra, who is nursing a knee injury.
Martin Jol says the Mali international has no more than a 50-50 chance of being fit to face the Gunners.
MATCH PREVIEW
If ever Arsenal needed a nice comfortable home win to settle the nerves, this is the time. Arsene Wenger's side have lost almost as many league games as they have won this season and 15 points from their first 10 games represents the club's worst start to a season in the Premier League era.
Fortunately for them, a nice comfortable home win is what Arsenal usually get in this fixture. Fulham's point at the Emirates last season was only their fourth in 108 years of trying and they have never yet made the short journey south-west with a win to enjoy.
Pundits tend to write off Fulham's away form without so much as a second thought. "Fulham are hopeless away from home" - everybody says it so it must be true, mustn't it?
Well, an average of a point a game over the last 16 away trips may not be spectacular, but it's good enough to suggest that the old true-ism needs to be reassessed.
Fulham boss Martin Jol got under Arsene Wenger's skin a couple of times when he was in charge of Spurs, most famously at Highbury in 2006. His first league match as Tottenham boss was a 5-4 defeat by the Gunners at White Hart Lane, and Jol never actually beat Wenger until last season's game at Craven Cottage when Johan Djourou's red card turned the game Fulham's way.
Such is Arsenal's brittle confidence these days, and Fulham's new-found joie de vivre, I am going to break my own golden rule in these previews and stick my neck out to make a prediction. I reckon that this is a game that Fulham will not lose, they may even make a bit of
