Olivier Giroud delighted for "very important" Joel Campbell

It was enough to have the man compensate for his errors by heading in a go-ahead goal in the early moments of the second half. It has happened already.

With fellow midfielder Francis Coquelin already out with his own knee problem, Wenger's options in the middle of the park are limited.

Flamini and Ramsey were paired together against Sunderland with the latter only just back from a hamstring injury. He blazed it over the bar, and there would have been fury if he had have scored as he looked to be offside. "There are a lot of young players waiting to come through, and we have a lot of quality training with us every day".

Campbell and Arsenal will return to the pitch on Wednesday for Champion's League action when they take on Greece's Olympiacos in the tournament's group stages. "It was frustrating but I'm encouraged by the players' performance".

Arsenal battled their way to a vital win against Sunderland at the Emirates on Saturday, after the visitors produced an impressive display which arguably merited a share of the point.

Ramsey knows he will not be awarded the same licence to get forward in such a game but believes the Gunners can get the required result.

Allardyce has now been in charge since October 9 and has led Sunderland to three wins in six league games - but felt this was the best he had seen in that time.

Allardyce, who will be without injured duo Sebastian Larsson and Jermain Defoe, said: "I've never won at Arsenal with any of my teams - drawn a few, but never won".

In front of him, we have Hector Bellerin, freshly recovered from his own injury as well as Per Mertesacker and Nacho Monreal, who have both managed to keep all their limbs intact for another week. We were edgy in the first half but in the second half we showed the mental strength, desire and more incisiveness even though it was not ideal.

Olivier Giroud (L) celebrates scoring his team's second goal during of the English Premier League football match between Arsenal and Sunderland at the Emirates Stadium in London on December 5, 2015.

"We have to find a new balance, and that doesn't come immediately - you could see that in our fluency and continuity of passing".

Now we get to look to Europe, and a match that determines whether we get to go to the knockout stage or if we get relegated to UEFA's version of the NIT.