Arsenal captain Cesc Fabregas admits he is concerned by how many games he has played at such a young age.

The Spaniard has been a regular for the Gunners since breaking into the team at just 17 years of age, and believes he is now feeling the effects with continued injury worries.

Fabregas missed a lot of games for Arsenal last season, and has looked unfit when playing for the team so far in this campaign, and he believes extra caution will be needed over his fitness.

He said: "The good news is that there is no tear there on the hamstring, nothing, it's just a little bit of fluid but it keeps coming back.

"It's outside the muscle, the 'skin' of the muscle. It's not really a muscle injury, it's fluid that keeps coming back and it's very annoying.

"We are working on it, looking at my hips because they are always very tight. We have to work on it but also understand that I am 23-years-old and I've played many, many games. Soon I will play my 200th Premier League game, as well as nearly 60 for the national team and 60 in the Champions League.

"So that's a lot of games for my age and I have to take care of myself."

Squillaci has warned his team-mates that a defeat at Wolves on Wednesday could all but end their title hopes.

The Gunners have suffered a critical loss of form at a crucial time after losing back-to-back games against Shakhtar Donetsk in the Champions League and Newcastle in the Premier League.

The North London outfit were looking in good stead to challenge after an impressive 3-0 away win over Manchester City and sat in second place in the division.

However Andy Carroll's winner for Newcastle at the Emirates consigned Arsene Wenger's side to their second home defeat of the season.

Arsenal still sit third, five points behind leaders Chelsea, but Squillaci insisted that they must get back to winning ways at Molineux, whilst reminding his team that the situation can still be resolved.

"Sunday's result against Newcastle was a shame as we had the chance to get closer to Chelsea and open up a gap on teams behind us," he said.

"A great side does not suffer three defeats, so we must respond at Wolves and show Arsenal are a great team.

"This is an important game and fatigue isn't an excuse as a lot of our players didn't make the trip to Donetsk.

"We're third in the table and top of our Champions League group, so the last week isn't a catastrophe." .

So how upset were you when the full time whistle sounded at the Grove on Sunday?

Were you saddened in the way you would be at the death of an aunt you vaguely remember but didn’t really know?

Were you fist-clenching angry, like when you find yourself in the wrong queue at the supermarket checkout (the one where the Vicky Pollard lookalike is chatting to her mate at the next till and checking through the purchases with all the speed of a Tai Chi master)?

Or did you do the full ‘man totally loses it in a hotel lobby’ thing? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGlNzV0thGY

Me, I went outside and shouted at a squirrel.

It took no notice.

Since then I haven’t really been bothered to look at anything on the internet. The caterwauling of the doom-mongers has, I’m sure, been a sound to behold. No doubt we have all been urged to sack Wenger, sell nine-tenths of the team and declare Ashburton Grove a natural disaster area.

Haiti? Earthquakes? Tropical storms? Cholera? That’s nothing mate. We lost at home to Newcastle – now that’s what you call a tragedy.

Or is it?

Take a look at this sequence of results, produced by an Arsenal team in a season not too distant from now:

October 20: Blackburn Rovers, EPL (H):            3-3

October 24: Real Mallorca, CL (H):                    3-1

October 27: Sunderland, EPL (A):                      1-1

October 30: FC Schalke, CL (A):                          1-3

November 4: Charlton Athletic, EPL (H):          2-4

November 8: Manchester Utd, CC (H):              4-0

November 17: Sp*rs, EPL (A):                              1-1

November 21: Deportivo, CL (A):                        0-2

You have to agree that it’s a dreadful run of form. If we counted all of the fixtures as three-point games (including the Carling Cup match) our tally would be 9 points out of a possible 24. A mighty 15 points dropped in all competitions.

It looks familiar, doesn’t it?

In fact it looks very much like the run of results we have just had: some dodgy draws, home and away; a comfortable home win in the CL, but also a bad away defeat in the same competition; an easy Carling Cup win; an embarrassing home league defeat against humble opposition.

All the above results happened in the season 2001-2002.

Any team that could be so inconsistent and flaky must surely have been full of players without a winning mentality, right? Or players unable to concentrate? Or players managed by someone who just couldn’t motivate them? And look at the goals conceded – 15 in 8 games – clearly a team who can’t defend?

Well, that team included Seaman, Campbell, Cole, Lauren, Keown, Adams, Vieira, Pires, Ljungberg, Henry, Wiltord and Bergkamp. And of course, they went on to win The Double that very same season.

So why am I telling you this?

Because we need a reminder that a bad spell does not mean that our team is doomed. A run of negative results does not make good players into bad ones. A poor points return does not transform a champion manager into a chump. A trophy-winning team can have a period when it looks more like relegation-fodder.

We have been here before, fellow Gooners. We may have moaned and groaned in 2001 but we were no way as disillusioned then as many seem to be in 2010. We supported our team and we kept the faith.

It’s time to dampen down the hysteria.

It’s time to look away from the most neurotic web sites, the ones who want to cry wolf at every passing poodle.

It’s time to tell the “Wenger Out” brigade to shut the fudge up and learn some perspective.

This Arsenal team will finish first or second in the league this season and will win a cup. And they’ll do it in style.