Sol Campbell is a major doubt for Arsenal at home to Newcastle, leaving manager Arsene Wenger facing a defensive crisis.

Campbell trained for the first time on Friday since hurting his back in Sunday's win over Fulham and Wenger rates him only a 50-50 chance to pass a fitness test.

But with Martin Keown still out with a hamstring problem and Matthew Upson on loan at Reading, he could have to give Igor Stepanovs a first Premiership game of the season as Pascal Cygan's partner despite the Latvian's shaky performance against Sunderland in the Worthington Cup defeat on Wednesday.

Right-back Lauren has already been ruled out with an ankle injury while midfielder Ray Parlour is still not ready to return from a hamstring problem, but skipper Patrick Vieira returns after suspension as Wenger recalls all his available big guns after fielding a reserve team in midweek.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger admits he is fighting off feelings of paranoia after Dennis Bergkamp became his latest player to be charged by the Football Association.

Bergkamp, in fact, must defend himself against an allegation of violent conduct over an incident in which he placed a foot on the chest of Blackburn's Swedish defender Nils-Eric Johansson at Highbury two weeks ago. He faces a three-match ban if the FA decide it was worthy of a red card.

The Dutchman claims he is bewildered and surprised by the charge as he believes referee Graham Barber had a full view of the incident, did not book him and merely told him to calm down.

But now the FA, after a video review, say Barber admitted he missed the alleged stamp on Johansson which Bergkamp referred to as a minor issue, claiming: "There was nothing in it."

The the Highbury chief, who has been accused of whining about the treatment Arsenal players receive from the authorities, denies he thinks there is some sort of conspiracy theory.

He said: "If you believed in that you would become paranoid and the next step after that is schizophrenia, a feeling that all the world is against you. I don't go into that kind of momentum. I try to fight against that sort of thing but what can you say when you have to defend players whom you believe have not hurt anybody. If you look at Dennis's record throughout his career, how many players has he hurt? The answer I think you will find is zero."

Newcastle hope to have central defender Andy O'Brien fit for the trip south.

The Republic of Ireland international has not played since he came off with a back injury in the Champions League game with Dynamo Kiev on October 29, but was named in an 18-man squad.

Frenchman Laurent Robert was missing after fracturing his cheekbone in Wednesday's Worthington Cup exit at the hands of Everton, while the game has come too early for striker Craig Bellamy.

Newcastle travel to Highbury with Kieron Dyer confident they can repeat their Premiership victory of last season.

Dyer said: "We might have gone out of the Worthington Cup but we are not getting ourselves down about it. We went in against Everton without the likes of Alan Shearer, Gary Speed and Aaron Hughes because the manager did not want them to blow up after our hectic schedule. But they will be back on Saturday and other players like myself Hugo Viana and Lomana Lua Lua took the opportunity to top our fitness up against Everton. We again showed that never-say-die attitude against Everton and there is still a great spirit in the squad, and this means we are going to Arsenal full of confidence feeling that we can come back with a result. To tell the truth I don't think they will fancy playing against us. Yes, we would probably need a little bit of luck at times in the game and if we get it I'm sure we can get another good result down there."

Meanwhile Sir Bobby Robson has seen his side win five of their last six Premiership games and also give themselves a great chance of going through to the second group stages of the Champions League.

But Robson, who was angry at the way his side went out of the Worthington Cup on Wednesday, said: "Arsenal went out of the competition in midweek as we did but Arsene Wenger played virtually a reserve side. The one on Wednesday night was a different one to the one we will face and we know he will have all his best players back. But we are in good shape ourselves and most of the players we rested on Wednesday will come back in. It's a big game. We did ever so well at Highbury last season but Saturday will tell us how much further away we still are."

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