Morning all. Arsenal are away from home again, kicking off at 8pm again, this time in the Carabao Cup third round at Ipswich Town. You have to imagine Mikel Arteta will rotate as much as possible, but a shortage of players in the back four will make that area a little trickier than everywhere else. I’m going to assume Ben White is out after the groin strain he picked up at Sunderland on Saturday evening, and we haven’t heard anything new about Cristhian Mosquera so he’s likely to be absent too. Jurrien Timber is back, and he’s a player who needs some minutes to rebuild his match fitness after a long time out. It’s possible he could play centre-half though, with Marli Salmon given a start at right back, then you ask if the manager feels like he can risk one of Gabriel or Ezri Konsa in this game?
He might have to, unless he brings Piero Hincapie into the middle, and plays Myles Lewis-Skelly at left-back, which would be a way of protecting his two important central defenders. I think given the options we have further forward, that could make some sense. In midfield, Martin Zubimedi, Mikel Merino and Eberechi Eze should all feature, and you might ask if some minutes for Bruno Guimaraes are on the agenda as we get him closer to 100%. If Myles is picked in midfield rather than in defence, then Eze will probably start on the left.
That would mean Noni Madueke on the right, and Viktor Gyokeres up front. There’s also Max Dowman to consider, a player many would like to see start a game like this, but I guess how Arteta has to configure things further back that might have an impact on that. This is a tournament that divides opinion, perhaps more than ever this season. We got to the final and semi-final in the last two campaigns, but there was always a sense that progress was counter-productive when it came to the physical toll it appeared to take on players who already had a big burden to carry and, with all due respect to the League Cup, more important trophies still to play for.
What’s clear though is that this manager has built his team around the idea that at this football club every game is important, every game is there to win. I don’t think he’s under any illusions that some games are more important than others, but nor do I think you can fully separate the progress we’ve made under him from that slight cultural shift. Arsene Wenger, for example, would pick teams in this competition that told you he viewed it differently, but the use of many youngsters was a way of presenting it as an opportunity for those players and, when we would do £10 tickets for home games, an opportunity for fans who struggled to get tickets for the bigger games. With Max and Marli, there is young talent to add that bit of interest, but the reality is this game is more important for guys like Madueke, Gyokeres, Eze to an extent, Merino, Zubimendi etc, who have been a bit peripheral so far this season. It’s still only September, there’s a long way to go and a lot of football to play, but I think Arteta will be looking closely at these guys to deliver the kinds of performances that give him something to think about when it comes to Premier League and Champions League fixtures. We need one big squad, not a two-tier set-up, and while there’s always going to be a hierarchy in certain positions because of the quality of particular individuals, this is a chance for some of them to press their case for greater involvement.
On tonight, Arteta says:
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“We will look at the players eyes, they will say they want to play, they want to win the game, they want to improve and they will be willing for me, because I know the boys. “We need to keep going – it doesn’t stop.”
I have no idea how much Ipswich might rotate or how seriously they’ll take it, but a cup tie against the Premier League champions will still be a bit of an occasion at Portman Road, so I think we can expect this to be something of a test. So, let’s see how it goes. Right, I’ll leave it there for this morning. As ever, we’ll bring you live blog coverage of the game later on, as well all the post-match stuff on Arseblog News like the match report, player ratings, manager reaction, quotes round-up and more. For something more to listen to ahead of another 8pm kick-off, we have an episode of The 30 available now on Patreon, and if you haven’t had a chance yet, the Arsecast Extra poring over our win over Sunderland is below. Catch you later on, for now have a good one.
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