As any know, I am not particularly interested in the competition formerly known as the League Cup.
We cannot win this Mickey Mouse cup. The "Big Teams" will be challenging for it.
My ambition is just to play well in this game with some of our kids given a chance
Arsenal originally played in a place called Plumstead Common until 1913 when a group of angry women burned down their stadium - TRUE FACT
Arteta will not want to lose this so will field a strong side. He wont be giving his kids a chance in this game. So I would expect Lacazette to start with Our Eddie Nketiah up top.
Partey will be in the middle with Odegaard. Maitland Niles on one wing and Pepe on the other.
Our Ben White will be at CB with Holding. Chambers at RB and Tavares at LB. Leno in goal.
If I was MB, I would stick with our 4-1-4-1 setup:
Meslier
Drameh Cresswell Struijk Dallas
KP
Summerville Shackelton Forshaw James
Gelhardt
I would also be looking to blood Greenwood against his former employers at HT.
Drameh was the silver lining, much better than I expected.
Started off with being on the wrong side of his opponent (have noticed this with the U-23 on several occasions), but he surprised me with the quality of his defending (only really got beat once). Looks very promising!!! Athletic!
First half we shaded it, and we played some very good counter attacking, flowing football. But no end product or final ball (taking the wrong option time and again).
2 very sloppy goals to conceed, wtf.
In terms of individual performances Philips looked very rusty, first i've seen Dallas look that uncomfortable at LB in a very long time (know of his issues, so not unexpected).
Pascal at CB, misplaced a good number of passes. Llorente looked very good, played some wonderfull balls. Surprised he was taken off and replaced by Coops → another LCB, when you've got Cresswell on the bench? Strange from MB because they caused us trouble with set-pieces and corners and Cresswell is by far our best header.
Forshaw, has been out that long and certainly at this level, is well of the pace.
Roberts, looks like age has finally caught up with, legs seem to have gone.
It took him 15 mins before he getting near the ball and afterwards he just stood out in losing possesion. Have to admit that after the hour mark he seemed to improve somewhat.
Plenty of running from James, Rodrigo and Harrison (who had the one decent effort on goal), but in truth the didn't show enough.
Subs didn't really work out.