Robert Pires finally returned to the Highbury turf to a standing ovation for the final 22 minutes of Arsenal's defeat at the hands of Auxerre on Tuesday night. It was the red-hot reception he had been expecting, with his very presence on the touchline as he warmed up during the first half bringing applause.

"I wanted to run everywhere, right to the moment when my heart began racing, because the time passed very, very quickly," he said afterwards. "I said to myself 'Robert, calm down'. But I was really happy. I have a lot of work still to do, because competition is a completely different rhythm. After seven months away the reception was heart-warming."

The France midfielder followed this with 70 minutes for Arsenal reserves against Ipswich on Wednesday night, leaving after putting his team into a 1-0 lead with a carefully judged lob. "I was a bit worried about the way the defence would tackle me," he said. "I took two big tackles, and that was what I was waiting for, to see how the knee would react. I'm reassured."

The ruptured ligament in his right knee, caused when he landed awkwardly after hurdling a challenge by Nikos Dabizas in the FA Cup sixth-round tie against Newcastle on March 23, was as severe a blow as can be imagined. "It's hard to end the season in that way. Arsenal were going well, the quipe de France were going well, just when I was preparing for the end of the [Premiership] season, and the World Cup, you have your future mapped out, and in the space of a few minutes everything just stops."

Pires's were not the only plans to go awry over the summer. Les Bleus got the blues as well in the World Cup and he still cannot decide how he would have reacted had he made it to Japan, whether or not he would have been as stale as his fellow tricolores .

As far as France is concerned, it is time now to turn the page.

"Now we're taking on another competition, Euro 2004, we're the defending champions, so we have to turn our minds to that and try to become European champions. I'm sure we'll keep the same desire to win but since the World Cup we need to make a new start with a new mentality. There's a new coach, some players have stopped, some of the team are new, so it's a period of complete reconstruction."

His return to Highbury is only slightly complicated by the fact that, suddenly, surprisingly, his team have known successive defeats. It is not, he said this week, the end of their incredible run of form and can be put down in part to the break for international games. "We didn't expect such opposition from Auxerre. We were a little tired and put up too many long balls, which is not like us."

Like many of his fellows who have plumbed the depths with injury or illness, Pires is quick to draw positive lessons from his seven months spent champing at the bit. Four of those months were spent recovering in a clinic in Saint Raphael, under the care of the French specialist Tiburce Darrou, where the cross-training included new sports: cycling, rowing, basketball.

Even the fact that he was operated on in Marseille is positive, a gesture of goodwill towards the city. There have been wider lessons, too.

"You see things differently after something like that," he says. "Compared to people who have really bad accidents, what happened to me was nothing, so at a certain point I need to be aware just how lucky I am. I can keep doing what I've always loved doing, so that's why even in mornings when I'm training with the young guys in the reserves I'm happy.

"Even if I'm injured, I know it's not serious. Life goes on, I still have two legs and I'll play again." Today should be another key stage in that process of recovery."