How are BATE doing, their legal battle with Ipswich and who are we going to put out against them

By Dr Billy “the Dog” McGraw

To start with the name, the obvious point of course is that BATE is of course ФК БАТЭ Барысаў – I’m glad we’ve got that sorted.   Although also it must be admitted that BATE is an acronym of Borisov Automobile and Tractor Electronics.  I gather there has been a long and difficult legal battle with Ipswich Town over the rights to be called The Tractor Boys, and this fight has now gone to Court of Arbitration in Sport who will hear the matter once they sort out what to do with Manchester City.

Although BATE have on occasion got through the prelims of European football, last season they did not fair so well, going out to the mighty Dundalk FC from County Louth, the reigning champions of Ireland.

At this point they dropped into the Europa League and went out in the qualifying play off preliminary additional first round.

Champions League Qualifiers 2016/2017
Round	Date	Venue	Opponent	Score
2nd	12/07/2016	H	SJK Seinäjoki	2:0
2nd	19/07/2016	A	SJK Seinäjoki	2:2
3rd	26/07/2016	H	Dundalk FC	1:0
3rd	02/08/2016	A	Dundalk FC	0:3
Europa League Qualifiers 2016/2017
Round	Date	Venue	Opponent	Results
Play-offs	18/08/2016	A	FK Astana	0:2
Play-offs	25/08/2016	H	FK Astana	2:2

Astana noted above play in the  Kazakhstan Premier League and by chance we had a chance to watch them recently in a match against Celtic and great fun it was too.  Having lost to Celtic 5-0 in a Champions League play off match they then ran Celtic a little closer than people expected and beat them 4-3 in the second leg.  For a while in the second half it almost looked as if they could catch Celtic up, which just goes to show that one cannot take these foreign chaps for granted.

This season the games in qualifying for Borisov Automobile and Tractor Electronics have got thus…

Round	Date	Venue	Opponent	Results
2nd	12/07/2017	H	FC Alashkert	1:1
2nd	18/07/2017	A	FC Alashkert	3:1
3rd	25/07/2017	A	Slavia Praha	0:1
3rd	02/08/2017	H	Slavia Praha	2:1
Europa League Qualifiers 2017/2018
Round	Date	Venue	Opponent	Results
Play-offs	17/08/2017	H	FC Aleksandriya	1:1
Play-offs	24/08/2017	A	FC Aleksandriya	2:1

None of this looks too frightening, so the main job for Arsenal will be to stay out of trouble, and make sure the plane lands at the right airport.  And come to that the right country.

Personally I can’t see any player being asked to play in all three games this week, although Mr Wenger regularly proves me wrong, and it might be that Alexis, who of course is well practised in travelling around the world and then playing matches for Arsenal, Chile and Arsenal could well feel he is up to it on Thursday.

But the thought is that a fair number of players who missed the under 23 game this week will be going off on a jolly jaunt to the land far away.   This could well include

• Chuba Akpom
• Josh Dasilva
• Matt Macey
• Ainsley Maitland-Niles
• Reiss Nelson,
• Eddie Nketiah
• Joe Willock

Of course quite a few of these guys will be beached (although I have no information on the availability of a suitable beach in the Borisov Automobile and Tractor Electronics stadium, but it also could mean that Nelson and Maitland-Niles will start.

We know of course that Ospina will have the honour between the sticks. and also that Jack Wilshere might well add minutes to his comeback.

Chambers is still injured I am told so he won’t be able to get experience here, but I suspect we can add to the list Holding.   Jeff Reine-Adelaide however has been clocking up the minutes for the under 23s and unless he has totally fallen out of favour I’d say he will be involved.

The other players who did not make it for the WBA game who could well be expected to be in the team are Alex Iwobi and Theo Walcott.  Plus Mertesacker, who I missed in the first edition of this article.

The other two names that have been mentioned in passing are Debuchy and Giroud.  Giroud I would suspect is the obvious leader of the line, but Debuchy has been so invisible I wonder if he will even be granted a role here.

We need 18 players for the full team and we’ve now got through this wonderful range of logical deductions….

Seven noted above from the under 23s plus

Ospina, Le Jeff, Wilshere, Theo, Iwobi, Debuchy, Giroud, Mert, which leaves three spaces.  So there certainly is room for some of the players who played in the monday game.  Alexis remains an option.

 

• Everything you didn’t know about BATE and probably want to keep it that way
• Arsenal Women v Birmingham, 23 September. The most satisfying of goals.
• Has the refereeing tied turned, or was it all a set of random events after all?