By Tony Attwood
If it had not been for Satruday’s game against Newcastle, we’d have been expecting Maitland-Niles to play in the match against West Ham in the League Cup quarter final.
But AMN did play, and Kolasinac was dropped. So what do we make of that?
There are several possibilities. Kolasinac had a slight knock. Or Mr Wenger wanted to see how AMN fared in a Premier League game – in which case it is obviously worthwhile putting him in against a team with a modest attack. (Newcastle don’t have the worst attack, but they are in the bottom half dozen). Or Mr Wenger thinks that it is a good idea to play five at the back (with wing backs) against West Ham and Kolasinac is the better option, even though it is “only” the League Cup.
Here is what Mr Wenger said of AMN…
“I believe he is the future. He can play left back, right back, central midfield. Of the three positions, maybe the least natural for him is left back, but he adapts very quickly and is a good defender. He has that sense of one against one, he is very strong, he is very quick, he has very quick recovery runs when he comes back. He has some aspects to learn: experience and he has to work on his heading. But overall, what he has done in the last three days is positive.”
So playing AMN on Saturday could have been any of those reasons above, or indeed a combination of them. There is also the fact of Liverpool on Friday… another game where there are issues relating to defence to contemplate. Even before today’s game (which is about to happen as I am writing this) Liverpool is the third highest scoring team in the league, so there is extra need for thought there.
All of which is a prelude to saying there are a lot of ifs and buts swirling around the choice of the team for the league cup semi-final. Indeed my little list of issues surrounding the full back situation could be extended if we follow the logic of the Daily Mirror which is running the headline about five players who could leave Arsenal in January. Their idea is for a full-scale turn around in terms of club personnel, but I rather suspect not. (The five are Alexis, Ozil, Giroud, Chambers, Walcott). The Sunday Excess goes even further and adds Jack Wilshere to the list).
Still one of the things to remember in all this is that at least one prediction for the Newcastle game in terms of the teams was untrue: FootballFanCast ran with “If he starts we won’t win – Arsenal fans demand star doesn’t face Newcastle.” The “he” was Xhaka, and he did, and we didn’t (play / lose that is).
In the last game for Arsenal II (the 6-0 stroll against BATE Barisov) the team was
Ospina,
Debuchy, Holding, Chambers, Maitland-Niles
Coquelin, Elneny,
Wilshere,
Walcott, Giroud, Welbeck.
On the beach we had Macey, Reine-Adelaide, Akpom, Nelson, Nketiah, Sheaf, Willock.
In the last League Cup match West Ham played (against Tottenham at Wembley) they put out this team…
Adrian, Byram, Rice, Kouyate, Ogbonna, Cresswell, Lanzini (Arnautovic 88), Fernandes (Obiang 77), Noble, Ayew, Carroll
while in their match against us at the amusingly called London Stadium they put out
Adrian, Reid, Ogbonna, Cresswell, Zabaleta, Noble (c), Obiang, Masuaku, Lanzini, Arnautovic, Antonio (Chicharito 82).
The players who played in the league game against us and the league cup game against Tottenham were thus Adrian, Ogbonna, Cresswell, and Lanzini.
So a fair degree of rotation for West Ham: not the total rotation between Arsenal I and Arsenal II that we have been seeing, but a fair amount of giving players a rest.
While Arsenal play Liverpool on Friday, West Ham play Newcastle on Saturday, and given the state of Newcastle that is a game that West Ham must surely think they can win.
After four defeats and a draw, they have now had two wins and a draw in the Premier League, but they are still only two points about Newcastle in the league. So my guess is that all emphasis will be placed on keeping up the League momentum in that game, and thus they will be playing, if not a second XI team against us, they will be doing a mix and match, keeping most of the squad who beat Stoke 0-3, fresh and ready for the Newcastle game.
Which means Arsenal can play the Arsenal II team on Tuesday. But exactly what that means I’ll consider in more detail tomorrow.
You did mean play Arsenal III on Tuesday?
After all we are playing Arsenal II in PL.
I don’t know where Arsenal I has got to.
I believe we should go with the ‘Bate’ team with Iwobi for Wilshere. West Ham will rotate massively. They have no chance in the Cup given the quality of teams left in the competition. PL survival must surely be their priority.
Yep, it’s rock paper scissors on selection
” Antoine Griezmann has apologised after initially telling his social media followers to “calm down” in response to outrage he sparked by painting himself black as part of a fancy-dress outfit.”
I really don’t know what all the fuss is about;
Is he apologising to white people that he wants to be black?
Is he apologising to black people for taking so long to admit it?
and what about the brown people? Do they get an apology that he did not want to be brown?
OK, I made this point to show how silly the whole situation is.
On the one hand institutional racism is stopping blacks from higher jobs in any great numbers, (see refs, managers, pilots, etc etc) and yet people on the street feel almost ashamed when a white person paints himself black(after all it’s not because they do not want to hire black footballers like in those days when they did not want to hire black actors and actually wanted to take the piss out of black people), which still happens in media by the way.
But maybe this is just another attempt at reproducing “the blackface” era, who knows anymore. Crazee!
para
Nasty little pop at our team in your first comment. With friends like you who needs enemies?
Mr Attwood, afternoon Sir. I agree with your starts and bench for this our Carabao Cup quarter final match against the West Hammers tomorrow night at the Emirates Stadium. But having known how the Hammers have been resuscitated from the dead by David Moyes and have thereafter become resurgent in their recent game outings in the PL which saw them holding Arsenal to a draw game in the PL at London Stadium last week, do you believe the Arsenal starts and bench you’ve made above are strong enough to beat the Hammers in this Carabao Cup encounter? I certainly don’t trust some of the starters you’ve started can play the top quality game required to give us victory over the Hammers who will play all their best..
Taking into cognisant Le Boss and the Gunners have a score to settle with jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool team in the PL at the Ems on Friday night and must be seriously thinking on this big game, but then, I don’t think Le Boss will jeopardise the outcome of this Cup game to the detriment of Arsenal success in the match. For, he has never won the competition before. It’s the only domestic Title in England that’s missing on his CV. Therefore, if you’ll allow me, let me then do some changes to your starts and bench that I believe will beat West Ham and give us victory over them in this Cup game.
Well, I take a look at your starts and bench again and after a second serious thought that hinged on our big game on Friday against Liverpool, I’ve decided to go by your starts and bench for the Cup game because Le Boss has to rest all his leading Gunners for the big Liverpool game which Arsenal MUST win. Let’s hope the starts and bench you’ve made for the Cup game will beat the Hammers. I believe they will.
Pat
Hey, i’ve seen worse pops my man, but mine is actually heartfelt and not that serious.