Ipswich Town v Arsenal: where Ipswich have been, and tonight’s team

 

• Ipswich v Arsenal League Cup; 8pm 15 September, and where the money comes from
• Ipswich v Arsenal: with the referee it is going to be very tough for Arsenal

By Tony Attwood

Ipswich Town joined the Third Division South in 1938 and almost immediately the UK went to war with Germany.  I am not sure if there was a connection.Post war they started a period of jiggling between the Third Division and the Second, and then eventually the Second Division and the First.  They won the First Division in 1962, and the Second Division (Championship) in 1961, 1968 and 1992.  They got a couple of third divsiion south titles in the 1950s too, as well as being runners up in the Third Division in 2023.   So adding in being Champions of the Souther n League in the 1930s, and winning the FA Cup in 1978, not to mention the Uefa Cup in 1981 they have got around a bit in terms of having silverware to show off.

 

In fact it has been a few years of bouncing around from place to place for the club, and in case my earlier account is not clear, this involves getting promotion from League 1 in 2023, being promoted from the Championship in 2024, being relegated from the Premier League in 2025, and being promoted again in 2026.  What busy bees they have been with all this popping up and down!

One of the interesting things is that in the 2023/4 season in which they were promoted from the Championship they scored 92 goals.  Then in the Premier League, they scored just 36, but last season coming back up again they scored 80.   They are in short a perfect example of the growing gap between the quality and performance of clubs in the Premier League and those in the Championship.

But rather amusingly their local derby (that being the game against the nearest rivals) is against the mighty Tottenham Hots (71 miles away) who I may have mentioned in the past are 17th.  I shall watch for that one with much interest. 

But back to the goings up and gongs down, they have now had four consecutive seasons of being promoted or being relegated.  I hope they have taught Tottenham a thing or two.

But seriously, part of their problem must be the size of the ground and thus the limit on the amount of money that can be taken for each game.  For their seating capacity is 30,056, which is of course under half of that at Arsenal’s ground.   Mind you, the size of ground isn’t everything – since Tottenham’s ground is quite a bit larger than Arsenal’s and they have come 17th in the league for the last two seasons, and are currently sitting 17th again (or at least were last time I looked).   I may however have mentioned that before.

And so to the team….

The Standard says it all loud and clear: Mikel Arteta will tonight rotate his Arsenal‘s line-up .

Kepa;

Timber, Konsa, Hincapie, Lewis-Skelly;

Zubimendi, Guimaraes;

Madueke, Merino, Eze;

Gyokeres

Now Yahoo Sprouts, sorry Sports, has the headline “Arsenal starting XI vs. Ipswich Town: Who will start in Carabao Cup match?” which is a bit silly since that is the question I am asking them so there is no need for them to ask themselves. But still they tell us that “being in so many competitions can be a blessing and a curse.”   So the Curse of the Tractor Boys is here for all to see.  Or is that the curse of being Arsenal?.   Could make a good film as the corn rises up and strangles….    but no, back to the football.

And they spell out the issues: “Ben White has a groin issue and centre backs Cristhian Mosquera and William Saliba continue to work through knocks…”  But in the end there is only one change

So there we are.   The Tractor Boys against the Gunners.   That sounds a bit unbalanced, but you never know.