{"id":3976,"date":"2021-09-21T17:57:10","date_gmt":"2021-09-21T16:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=3976"},"modified":"2021-09-22T23:30:35","modified_gmt":"2021-09-22T22:30:35","slug":"wimbledon-an-uncommon-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=3976","title":{"rendered":"Wimbledon- An Uncommon Story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We have a new author in our stable, aka CER The Younger. Welcome, 21st Century Gooner!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Courtesy of womblesofficial.com<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Gunners take on AFC Wimbledon on Wednesday night in the third round of the Carabao Cup. We can probably expect a heavily rotated side, as after picking up back-to-back wins and clean sheets following the international break the pressure has eased on Mikel Arteta somewhat. This coupled with the fact that we have a meeting with that lot down the road on the weekend. But that\u2019s not to say the boss will take the visitors lightly. We have already seen that Arteta is a man who takes the cup competitions seriously. Since being appointed in 2019 he has enjoyed a good record in non-premier league games. We, of course, won the FA Cup in 2020 after beating Manchester City and Chelsea, won the Charity Shield a few weeks later and made the semi-finals of the Europa champions league last season. At the same time, we can hope to see a couple of the lads from Hale End get a run out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what do we know about our South West London visitors other than they live underground, overground wombling free? Well, they are a relatively new club, having risen from the ashes of the former Wimbledon FC in 2002 after their controversial relocation to Milton Keynes 50 miles north of their SW17 home. Their fans were understandably furious about this, so they decided to do something about it, forming the phoenix club AFC Wimbledon. They had to begin at the bottom way down in the ninth tier of the English football pyramid. They have been promoted an impressive six times since then and since 2016 they have plied their trade in league one (that\u2019s division three in old money) just two divisions below the Premier League. Impressive. They also have the record of being the only club in the football league formed in the 21st<\/sup> century. So, despite their brief history, this is a club with great pride in their club and what they have achieved. We can expect to see a side with a lot of togetherness and fighting spirit, who will be eager to compete and not just happy to be playing top class opposition (now we\u2019ve stormed to the dizzy heights of 13th). That said this is a game we really should be winning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what kind of team can we expect to see? Arteta surprised many with his strong selection in the previous round with Aubameyang, Pepe and Saka all starting. We romped to a 6-0 win that night although this was partially because West Brom played the kids. We will not get that benefit against this AFC Wimbledon side, with many of their players quite possibly viewing this game as a chance to put themselves in the shop window. Following Leno being usurped by Aaron Ramsdale for the PL team, it is more than likely the German will start in goal. At the back it may well be the out of favour Cedric Soares on the right-hand side with the chuckle brothers, Holding and Mari in the middle. Then on the left it\u2019s a toss-up between the dynamic and rangy Tavares and part-time minder Sead Kolasinac. Bearing in mind we have just signed the former and are trying to offload the latter you would expect Arteta to go with the Portugal U-21 international.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Onto the midfield. Will it be 4-3-3? For the first time in a long while on Saturday, the boss went with his preferred 4-3-3 which was effective in the first half before waning in the second half as the Ginger Testicle\u2019s Orcs set about playing the Tony Pulis school of neanderthal football. Much like they say, \u201cThursday is the new Friday\u201d, Burnley are the new Stoke. Anyway, I digress. It is likely that we will see the Egyptian Pirlo sitting in the middle of the park orchestrating the game with his five yards sideways passing to the centre backs. We may well see one of Ainsley Maitland Niles or Albert Sambi Lokonga sitting next to Elneny with both players coming on as second half substitutes at Turf Moor. It will be interesting to see who plays in the creative midfielder role. It is unlikely Arteta will want to risk either Emile Smith Rowe or Martin Odegaard ahead of next week\u2019s derby but if not highly rated 17-year-old Charlie Patino may get a run out. The teenager impressed in the U-21\u2019s 2-1 defeat at Swindon in the Papa John\u2019s last week and many scouts have said that he is set to go down \u201cthe Phil Foden route\u201d, where instead of being a flat track bully in youth football he will be given opportunities with the first team. How soon those chances will present themselves remains to be seen, but he is certainly tipped for a very bright future. Clearly the BFG is making sure these kids are eating their Weetabix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Up front, Arteta has a plethora of options. Hopefully we see Martinelli on the left, with a bit of luck the Brazilian can get a goal or two to kickstart his season. Up top it may well be Lacazette leading the line. The Frenchman has rarely got a look in this season due to a combination of Covid and falling out of favour. He will almost certainly be leaving on a Bosman at the end of the campaign so in all fairness it would make more sense to play those who are part of the long-term project. So again, it could be anyone out of the Frenchman or Nketiah or Balogun who has returned to academy football since that chastening evening at Brentford. There\u2019s the classic, too good for youth football but not ready for topflight football. Quite the dilemma. A loan to a top half championship club and regular first team action would do him the world of good. Then we could see Pepe on the right perhaps. He has had a strange start to the season, but he is finally getting a regular run of games this year it seems. Again, Arteta will not want to run the risk of an injury to a key player ahead of such a huge game, but we are lacking in right wingers with Nelson off in Holland on loan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, it is all set up to be an interesting evening under the lights in N5. A chance for those who can\u2019t regularly attend to go and watch their heroes in action and another chance for Arsenal to continue the momentum ahead of the derby. COYG!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have a new author in our stable, aka CER The Younger. Welcome, 21st Century Gooner! The Gunners take on AFC Wimbledon on Wednesday night in the third round of the Carabao Cup. We can probably expect a heavily rotated side, as after picking up back-to-back wins and clean sheets following the international break the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"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\/3976"}],"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\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3976"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3999,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3976\/revisions\/3999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}