{"id":14333,"date":"2026-09-15T00:00:53","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T23:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=14333"},"modified":"2026-09-16T20:24:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T19:24:15","slug":"next-up-the-carabao-cup-at-portman-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=14333","title":{"rendered":"Next up, the Carabao Cup at Portman Road"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Editor’s note: due to some geeing-up of the Goonerholicsforever populace by North Bank Ned, we’ve topped the \u00a31000 pound mark in donations for this year’s Predictathon. We’ve gotten to \u00a31055 from 25 donations, plus another \u00a3128.75 for “gift aid” from the donors. Well done to all who’ve donated, as TTG’s drink in a couple of posts back shared, Willow are very pleased. We’ve re-posted his note in the first drink below. And Week 4’s Predictathon update is now in the usual place at the tab above…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our beloved Arsenal head to the heart of Suffolk on Tuesday to take on Ipswich Town in the Carabao Cup 3d round. It’s an evening game at Portman Road, so if our travelling fans squint (perhaps after a few pints of Tolly Rodger) they might see the ghosts of Ipswich past emerging from the twilight mist…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tractor Boys have a varied history of success since the club of amateurs began kicking around the leather in the late 1870s. They won a number of championships in the Southern Amateur League, including 3 in 5 years at the same time Herbert Chapman’s Arsenal were dominating Division 1. Having waited more then 50 years to join the ranks of professionals, did so in 1936, promptly winning the Southern League trophy and finishing runners-up the following year, for which they were elected to the Football League’s Third Division South in 1938.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With only marginal success after World War 2 they managed to hire Sir Alf Ramsey in the mid-1950s after he completed his playing career for the scum up the road. Notwithstanding that taint, he brought immediate success to the Blues, winning promotion from the Third to the Second to the First Division in 1961. And then he won the First Division Championship at the first time of asking, dethroning that mob from Middlesex. That’s a note to spear wrongfully audacious Spurs fans with, if you like…Ipswich has a more recent First Division championship than they do! Sir Alf left the club to pursue a greater dream with the England national team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They stayed in the top league for most of the 70s into the 80s under Sir Robert Robson, winning the FA Cup and UEFA Cup as well as finishing runners-up two seasons running in 1981 to 1982. It took four years after Sir Robert left for Ipswich to slide into the Second Division; they’ve largely stayed there since, with a few years back in the First Division, and a couple down in the Third. They were bought by the US investment group Gamechanger 20 Limited in 2021, and after a couple of indifferent seasons were promoted to the Championship, and the next year to the Premier League. They went straight back down only to come straight back up for this season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ipswich Town<\/strong>
The club have brought Strasbourg’s Gary O’Neil in as manager to see if he can get this tractor running well and remain in the Prem. So far, so good, as they sit in 10th place after the first four rounds. They score about as freely as Arsenal do, with their latest success against Palace coming with a last-minute winner. They are coming into this game with no one on the treatment table, so their players will be competing among themselves for a place in the squad. One player we can expect to see is ex-Arsenal “star of the future” Chuba Akpom on the bench, if not in the starting lineup; he signed permanently for Ipswich after spending a decent season there last year on loan from Ajax. Can you believe he’s now 30?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While their 10th place position is the envy of teams like United, Villa, and Spurs, their defense is not…even United put five past them! Tied for second-worst tally in the league with Coventry on 10 concessions, it is possible O’Neil will stray from his usual back four of Davis, Greaves, Diop and O’Shea in front of Scherpen in goal. In their Carabao Cup second round win over Leicester he rang in three changes in defense and a different ‘keeper, so he has priors for fielding a “cup team”. His defensive midfield pair usually is two of three from Palacios, Lukic, and Nu\u00f1ez, though the same calculus applies to the cup as with the defense. In short, I have no clue what sort of team O’Neil is going to field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Arsenal<\/strong>
Did you know that we come in to this game on the back of six straight victories in all competitions? Just kidding, of course you do. We sit top of the league, with one of the better goalscoring tallies and the meanest defense. And we have only scored one<\/em> set-piece goal all year, Saka’s penalty this past Saturday at the Stadium of Light! Where have you gone, Mr. Jover?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With White hobbling off at halftime on Saturday, and Mosquera not in the squad since his own hobbling exit at Villa Park two weeks ago, Timber is seemingly our only option at right back. There are rumors that Mosquera could be back, and Arteta has the option of blooding Salmon, from the bench or from the start. He and Dowman both trained with the first team today, according to Jeorge Bird (the expectation being they won’t play in tomorrow’s EFL Trophy tilt against Leyton Orient). Saliba is still out until December, leaving two of Konsa, Gabriel, Salmon, and Calafiori to fill our central defense. I’d start Konsa and Salmon, regardless of footedness, and leave Gabriel on the bench with Calafiori, so starting Hincapi\u00e9 on the left. While the approaching three-week interlull gives Arteta a little bit of freedom to mix and match through the game, but we certainly don’t want any further injuries to our defensive corps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have no injuries to our usual midfield sextet, though I have to believe \u00d8degaard, Rice, and Lewis-Skelly will start on the bench. Depending on where the boss can see Dowman playing Zubimendi, Merino, and Dowman in the midfield would be a treat to see feeding a front three of Eze, Gy\u00f6keres, and Madueke, leaving Saka to join the benchwarmers. Otherwise, Tzolis on the left, Eze in midfield, and Dowman on the right with Madueke on the bench feels right. In spite of his heroics against Sunderland, and much as I consider his keeping suspect, I’m guessing Kepa will start in goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I will plump for this lineup to start:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kepa
Timber — Konsa — Salmon — Hincapi\u00e9
Zubimendi — Eze — Merino
Dowman — Gy\u00f6keres — Tzolis<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I expect an Arsenal win, I can’t tell if it will be a tight one, or if we’ll really get our juices flowing against a relatively poor defense. I mean, if United can put five past them, why can’t we? I do expect, regardless of whom Arteta starts, that our defense will be able to do enough to keep their goals scored to one or none. To that end, a 3-1 Arsenal victory gets you 10\/1. However, if you have a gut feeling that our injuries in defense and changed team will mean Ipswich might score two, you can get 25\/1 on Arsenal 3-2 Ipswich, and you can double<\/em> that to 50\/1 if we replicate the United 5-2 score!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regardless of the actual score, an Arsenal win with no further injuries will do me just fine, and I hope the travelling fans have a safe and enjoyable time. Watch out for what comes out of the mist at Portman Road, though…and hoist a Tolly Rodger to our success!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

COYG!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note: due to some geeing-up of the Goonerholicsforever populace by North Bank Ned, we’ve topped the \u00a31000 pound mark in donations for this year’s Predictathon. We’ve gotten to \u00a31055 from 25 donations, plus another \u00a3128.75 for “gift aid” from the donors. Well done to all who’ve donated, as TTG’s drink in a couple of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14333"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14333"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14345,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14333\/revisions\/14345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}