I'm glad that my injury was not serious

Tomáš is very happy about being able to quickly get back to training and play the important Premiership match against Manchester City last Saturday. That is one of the key messages of the season's first article Tomáš has written for “My Diary”. Having missed one Premiership game and the national team's match in Austria due to a knee joint injury he'd suffered in the match at Sparta, Tomáš got back to low-intensity training last Wednesday. The Premiership match on Saturday has shown that he really now back in the game again.

I have some good news to share. Obviously, the most important one is Arsenal's fairly good start to the season. I am also glad that I have recovered from my knee injury rather quickly and can play competition matches again. Fortunately, the injury I suffered in Prague had nothing to do with the previous ones.

Our doctors were absolutely right in that a one-week break was exactly what my knee needed, and so I could get back to low-intensity training on Wednesday and Thursday. The high-load pre-match training session on Friday and the match on Saturday were no problem, either. I am sorry about missing the national team's match in Vienna, but being ready for the Euro qualifiers in San Marino and at home against Ireland in September is far more important. In particular, the home match may be a key to the Euro tournament, and so we have to prepare really well. Unfortunately, a few guys got injured in Vienna, but I hope they recover quickly.

Let me get back to the Premiership match against Manchester City: only the future will show how important our close win really was. Coming as the Premier League leader and a team that had not conceded a goal until that point, the opposition showed that they were ready to play a completely different role from that they'd played last year. The club has a new owner, a new manager and a large number of new players, and the team's style is a different ball game. The fight for who scores the first goal was tough and took a long time and thank god it was us, despite the missed penalty. What I also consider positive is that we did not concede an early equaliser, in contrast with our last year's strange “habit” – every team feels much more comfortable with a nill on their side of the scoreboard.

Sunday was a day off, but today we are starting to prepare for the return match against Sparta. We are aware that the result of the away fixture is very promising and we actually knew it right after the game in Prague, but we could have a serious problem in the upcoming match if we failed to play the same way and with the same degree of commitment, because Sparta, having not much to lose, are going to play it smart and will not give up easily. Nevertheless, I believe we will not underestimate them and get through to the Champions League group stage without a hitch to meet one of our key objectives this year and build confidence for the rest of the autumn part of the season.