{"id":6956,"date":"2022-11-09T11:25:54","date_gmt":"2022-11-09T11:25:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=6956"},"modified":"2022-11-10T11:45:38","modified_gmt":"2022-11-10T11:45:38","slug":"can-arsenal-fight-effectively-on-three-fronts-should-we-try","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=6956","title":{"rendered":"Can Arsenal Fight Effectively on Four Fronts? Should We Try?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color:#fff;display:inline-block;font-family:Roboto,sans-serif;color:#a7a7a7;font-size:11px;width:100%;max-width:594px;\"><div style=\"padding:0;margin:0;text-align:left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/456340088\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" rel=\"noopener\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div><div style=\"overflow:hidden;position:relative;height:0;padding:63.299664% 0 0 0;width:100%;\"><iframe src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/456340088?et=-9LooO1JT5lk0sE7kQgjrg&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=gOU-6KTKXj8JF-r8vOZNG1Nxs_2Imv-uxcwLT-4PDxU=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"594\" height=\"376\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;margin:0;\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Tonight, we face Brighton &amp; Hove Albion in the Third Round of the Carabao Cup (aka The League Cup to us oldies). Since the euphoria generated by the spirited style of our now customary victory at the Bus Stop in Fulham began slowly to dissipate, huddles of Gooners have been debating whether to potentially throw this tournament in the bin to allow our slim squad to sustain its hitherto remarkable charge for the Premiership title.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s a strong lobby to rest our entire first XI, play the back-ups and some of the kids and see if they are good enough to dispose of Brighton but not really care if they don\u2019t. This is based not only on the heavy schedule that our first teamers have just come through (with flying colours) but also on the fixture congestion to come in the new year if we continue to participate in this tournament. Thus, it is argued that we will have fewer mid-week commitments in the second half of the season and will be able to concentrate the energies of our first XI on the Holy Grail of the Premiership. It is not an unreasonable argument given our small squad and the predictable pressures to come in January through May. However, I suspect Mikel Arteta does not share this view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course, in the Wenger years, the early rounds of this competition were used to test the kids, often with astounding success, and as the team progressed through each round more experience was added to match up against more challenging opponents. That approach did bring some limited success. During this era, I was lucky enough to attend three dispiriting finals. The first was against the despicable Portuguese\u2019s Chavs in the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff where we were done by two virtually identical Drogba goals after an encouraging opener by the enthusiastic young Theo Walcot. The second, back at the new Wembley, saw an injury ravaged Arsenal line up lose 2-1 to an uninspiring Birmingham City side with long-term rumoured transfer target, Obafemi Martens scoring the winner in the 89<sup>th<\/sup>&nbsp;minute after that famous mix-up between Sczc\u0119sny and Koscielny. We had been so dominant, I was optimistic that we could pull the fat out of the fire in the remaining 4 minutes of added time but it was not to be. The third Wenger final and the first named \u2018Carabao\u2019 was a predictable 3-0 thumping by an imperious Citeh outfit in Pep\u2019s first final with Citeh. The gulf in quality was sickening. That overly personal reminiscence was to illustrate the fact that we have unfinished business in this competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We have long underperformed in this competition, probably often as a result of prioritising others.&nbsp;&nbsp;We reached consecutive League Cup finals in 1968 and 1969, losing both \u2013 to (VERY) Dirty Leeds and Swindon Town respectively. The Guvna, Dave Faber, could provide a riveting eye-witness soliloquy on both those finals. We finally won the three handled pot in 1987 by beating Liverpool 2-1, after being 1-0 down, through two goals by Champagne Charlie Nicholas to give Gorgeous George his first trophy as Arsenal manager and returned to the final the next season only to lose 2-3 surprisingly to underdogs Luton Town, after being 2-1 up, goals by Hayes and Smith being insufficient given a penalty miss by Winterburn and defensive ineptitude by Caesar. That game was a sliding door moment for George who subsequently brought in Bould and Dixon to create the famous back four. We did win that pot once more, in 1993, 2-1 against Sheffield Wednesday (whom we also beat, after a replay, in that season\u2019s FA Cup Final) with goals from Merson and Morrow after being 0-1 down. That final may be most notable for Tony Adams practising his future Strictly partner-lifting technique on Steve Morrow only to drop him and break his arm. His technique has clearly come on leaps and bounds since then though!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I expect Brighton to take this tournament seriously. They have never graced the final let alone won the competition but they are having a great start to the season, sitting in 6<sup>th<\/sup>&nbsp;place 13 points behind the leaders (who could that be?). Their coach, Robert de Zerbi has said he is treating this match like a Premier League game and expects his players to do the same:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>&#8220;It will be a test for many players, but when we wear our shirt we must play seriously and we must try to win.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>&#8220;it\u2019s a very important game. I can make some changes in the first 11 but, for me, the cup or a friendly is like a Premier League game. There\u2019s not a big difference.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>&#8220;It\u2019s important to always win, but it\u2019s most important to play seriously. If we want to prepare in the best way for the next game against Aston Villa, we have to play well tomorrow &#8211; 100%. The best way to arrive in the best condition next Sunday is to play well tomorrow.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>&#8220;I want 11 players who show the same respect as in the last game against Wolverhampton Wanderers. When a player has that mentality and plays the same way in a Premier League, in a training session, this is the mentality for me.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>&#8220;Every time you wear the shirt, you always give 100% &#8211; this is the first part of mentality. The second part is to play with bravery, courage and personality against teams, whether they are bottom or top of the table.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sentiments we can, in truth, all get behind. As many Gooners opine, we want to win every game and win every competition we enter. Tonight is no different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I expect Mikel Arteta to treat this game as he did the Europa League group games, selecting his back-ups and leavening them with first choices who are selected on the basis of game time already accumulated with the likes of Saka and Martinelli playing only part of the match, if needed. Some kids may be on the bench but I don\u2019t expect a different approach from the Europa League. We can deal with fixture congestion in 2023 in 2023. At this point in time we should try to stay in every competition. Who knows what the fall-out from Qatar will bring? Hence, I expect a team like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Turner (if fit)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Cedric, Holding, Gabriel, Tierney<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">\u00d8degaard, Elneny, Sambi<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Vieira, Nketiah, Nelson<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After all, there\u2019s only one further game to play until the despicable WC in Qatar interrupts the season and many players get a six-week period of R \u2018n R with three friendlies to play whilst others are condemned to running around in a baking hot sand-pit for the aggrandisement of a venal collection of middle eastern potentates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Holic pound is still going to Ukraine but I predict 2-1 to the Arsenal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sadly, the game is not being broadcast live on television anywhere in the world so apparently there won\u2019t even be streams. Those not going can listen to the \u2018radio\u2019 commentary on .com but we will have our own eye-witness reporter in attendance and his match report will be posted here tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images Tonight, we face Brighton &amp; Hove Albion in the Third Round of the Carabao Cup (aka The League Cup to us oldies). Since the euphoria generated by the spirited style of our now customary victory at the Bus Stop in Fulham began slowly to dissipate, huddles of Gooners have been debating [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6956"}],"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\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6956"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6967,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6956\/revisions\/6967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}