Wolves’ spy-in-the-camp Ronald Zubar has kicked off the countdown to the club’s first trip to the Emirates by revealing Arsenal are wary of Kevin Doyle.

While boss Mick McCarthy appears to have enough on his plate worrying about the numerous Gunners threats this Saturday, at least one player on the opposing side is wary of the £6.5million Molineux club-record signing.

Zubar played with Arsenal’s Samir Nasri at Marseille for three years, knows Gael Clichy and Bakari Sagna from the France under-21 team and is good friends with the Gunners’ fellow Guadolupe-born defender William Gallas.

And the 24-year-old reckons the former Chelsea stopper is not relishing facing the seven-goal striker.

He said: “I don’t know if William Gallas will play because of injury and Thomas Vermalen didn’t play last time. Whoever plays there I’m sure Kevin Doyle can cause them problems.

“He’s done that to a lot of defences this season and Gallas told me last time he doesn’t like playing against Kevin. It’s because of his movement, battling and chasing.”

Doyle has been the club’s’ best player this season – so much so that the Gunners were linked with him at one stage of the campaign. Zubar believes the striker sets the tone for the whole team with his energy and workrate.

The former Marseille defender reckons Wolves have a chance of coming away from their first visit to the Emirates unbeaten if they follow that hard work ethic.

He said: “If we all chase like that we have a chance. Arsenal will always be looking to get forward and I don’t think the gaffer will want us to just stay back and defend.

“We know what they’re capable of but we must also try to attack ourselves and create chances – there’s always going to be free kicks and corners.

“That will be our best chance of trying to get something from the game. But, even so, it’s also all about staying in the game as long as we can.

“If we can prevent them scoring, the pressure is on them because no one will be expecting anything from us.”

Zubar admits Wolves’ chances will be written off at the Emirates.

But after emerging victorious from their two other trips to the capital this season at Tottenham and West Ham, the defender knows the team will go to north London full of confidence after picking up eight points from their last four games.

He said: “We’re very much the underdogs. But at the moment we’re confident after the last four games going into what we know will be a really difficult game.

“Arsenal drew against Birmingham and although they’ve got Barcelona first they’ll be needing to win against us. They are a great team who play beautiful football and people like to watch them play.

“But I’m sure we’ll get chances as well.”

Zubar admits that confidence was honed with Saturday’s 0-0 draw against form team Everton, when they were given a thorough physical test after showing their purist side with a cracking footballing display to beat the Hammers four days earlier.

He said: “It was a big game against a tough team but a good point. Teams such as Everton and Villa are potentially top six teams. So it’s definitely been a good few weeks for the lads.

“We knew the sort of test we’d get from Everton. It was so important we didn’t make a mistake or give them a goal and limited them to few chances. We knew before if we could come away with a point that would be a good result.

“It’s all about fighting and scrapping to stay in the game particularly in the early stages if you’re to get results in this league.”

As a defender, Zubar was also relieved to help Wolves to the third clean sheet of the 11-match run since the formation was switched to 4-5-1.

He said: “It’s good to get a clean sheet, because we were so close to getting one at West Ham and not too far away at Burnley either.

“We feel confident as a defence that we can limit teams to few chances and I loved the physical nature of the game with Everton.”

The £2million summer signing has also been able to show the attacking side to his game, after scoring his first Premier League goal at West Ham before curling one just wide on Saturday.

He said: “My first job is to defend and keep things solid, but I also like getting forward when I can. It was a nice one and two-touch move with Foley and Doyle and a great ball but I just couldn’t get the ball on target.

“I was happy with my performance though.”