Fulham's European hero Luis Boa Morte still loves his old club Arsenal and believes the Gunners are ready to halt their amazing losing streak against the Cottagers at Loftus Road on Sunday.

Boa Morte, who made 25 appearances for the Highbury giants between 1997 and 1999, was in sensational form in Fulham's 3-0 UEFA Cup second round first leg demolition of 10-man Dinamo Zagreb in Croatia.

The 25-year-old Portuguese international had a rare outing up front and terrorised the home club's back line with pacy runs.

He fired his first goal for 14 months shortly after being fouled by Kristijan Polovanec who received a red card after 32 minutes.

Now Boa Morte has the perfect chance to show Arsene Wenger the sort of inspiration his side desperately need.

Arsenal have plunged to four straight defeats - but Boa Morte, who wants the Gunners to win the Premiership, believes they could end their shock run against his team.

"After Fulham, I want Arsenal to win the title," he said.

"I support them because they're the club which brought me to English football. I've been to see them play twice in the Champions League this season, when I talk to Patrick Vieira and the other players. I'm still close friends with Patrick and we go out for dinner. Of course he's not happy at the moment, but no-one would be happy to lose four times on the trot. It's a shame he's suspended for Sunday, although that's good for us because he's really important to the Arsenal team. But there's never a good time to play them, because they have really high confidence against whoever they play. They're still playing well and could change their losing run at any time."

Boa Morte vowed to give his full commitment to the Fulham cause when they square up to his favourite team.

"Last night was one of my best performances for the club. I'm playing for Fulham on Sunday and will give 100% for Fulham," he insisted.

Facundo Sava will miss Sunday's London derby showdown due to his calf injury.

Boss Jean Tigana hoped the Argentinian would only sit out Sunday's match at Southampton, which the Cottagers lost 4-2, but he also missed Thursday night's 3-0 UEFA Cup victory against Dinamo Zagreb in Croatia - and is out of the showdown with Arsene Wenger's double-winners.

Forward Louis Saha is still three weeks off a return from his ongoing hamstring problem, while midfielder Sean Davis is out until next month with his fractured toe.

Tigana is also concerned about the fitness of Martin Djetou (knee), who could only last an hour last night, and Steve Marlet, who the Frenchman fears may be tired.

Meanwhile, Dennis Bergkamp is hoping for a recall to the Arsenal starting line-up after missing the midweek trip to Borussia Dortmund.

Bergkamp, who has recovered from an Achilles injury, last started a match on September 25 at PSV Eindhoven but could now return to give his team the perfect boost after a depressing run of four defeats.

Vieira completes his two-match suspension at Loftus Road, while Martin Keown, Ray Parlour and Giovanni van Bronckhorst are also expected to miss out due to injury problems.

Boss Arsene Wenger insisted there was no need to enter the transfer market as he claimed Arsenal were still the best side in the country despite their worst run of defeats for 19 years.

Wenger accepted that after their record-breaking start to the season, the Gunners' fallibilities in losing to Everton, Auxerre, Blackburn and Borussia Dortmund had been a source of amusement outside Highbury.

"We have at least made the country happy," smiled Wenger, who was insisting only three weeks ago that his team could go unbeaten throughout the whole campaign. At the moment, we are boring in losing games, much more so than winning them! But who wants their neighbour to be a star rather than him? Nobody. When you are dominating a competition, like Michael Schumacher in Formula One, everyone wants someone else to win a race because it's more interesting. I can understand that, but I work for Arsenal and we want to win every game."

Liverpool now lead the way in the title race by a four-point margin and Wenger admits that he would willingly swap places with them.

But he is refusing to panic despite his obvious concerns at his team's recent misfortunes, especially in defending.

"I take the defeats very personally as I want to win the games and we are disappointed at the moment," he said.

"If we played those games against Everton and Blackburn, we would win 98 times. The margin between losing and winning for us is very small but we must add something to what we do. Of course we want to respond quickly now, but I think we will be stronger than before and even more focused. The criticism does hurt as, like everybody, we prefer not to have it but we're in a public job and the players don't need the criticism to question themselves and change things. You look what you can add to the team but you keep the confidence high and keep believing in what you do."

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