Wednesday 26 September 2018

Arsenal v Brentford: Carabao Cup Preview

The 2-0 win against Everton on Sunday made it five wins in a row in all competitions for Arsenal and four of those were in the league. I’ve always thought you need to average two points per game to have any chance of making an impact in the league and we’re on that average with a good run of games coming up. We had a great home record last season, but we struggled away from home against almost every single team in the league. Two away wins from three games so far is very encouraging with the only defeat coming away to unbeaten Chelsea.

It’s the Carabao Cup for us tonight when Brentford come calling and it’s a competition we reached the final in last season. The less said about that final the better though and it will be interesting to see Unai Emery's take on the lesser of the three domestic trophies we play for. Arsene Wenger used the competition to blood young players for many seasons and gradually strengthened the team as we progressed through the rounds. He never managed to win it though with defeats to Chelsea, Birmingham and City in the final during his reign.

The new man might just be tempted to give it a shot and he certainly played a stronger team than his predecessor would have done in our first Europa League group game last week. He has a great track record in winning trophies and I have no doubt he would love to get first trophy at Arsenal as quickly as possible regardless of the perceived value of the competition. The Premier League has to be our first priority, but trips to Wembley for cup finals are usually a pleasant sideshow.

I would expect a fairly similar team to the one which played last Thursday night, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Alexander Lacazette was the man leading the line this time with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang on the bench. Maybe Matteo Guendouzi might start in midfield with Lucas Torreira now looking like the man to anchor the midfield of our first choice 11 and we should see Stephan Lichsteiner, Bernd Leno, Mohamed Elneny and Danny Welbeck play from the start too. With doubts over the fitness of Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Sokratis Papastathopoulos I would expect both of them to sit the game out which would see Rob Holding, Shkodran Mustafi and Nacho Monreal in defence and probably Emile Smith-Rowe play in an attacking role. The manager might opt for a slightly less experienced line up and I for one wouldn’t be averse to see Eddie Nketiah and one or two others get a run out from the start or at some stage during the game.

It’s certainly a fairly strong team and which would probably be expected to progress, but you can never take these games for granted as Derby showed us against United last night. Brentford have started the season very well and from the little I have seen of them they play some good football. They will ask plenty of questions of us and the players will have to be on the ball from the start.

We have looked far from at the races in the first half of games in particular this season, but the manager is adept at finding ways to adjust our style and performance. Progression to the next round would be nice and so would making it six wins in a row in all competitions, but ultimately the Carabao Cup is of little importance until we reach a stage where we can smell the chance of a trophy. If we’re going to play a strongish team in the Europa League then it could be at the cost of progress in the Carabao Cup and that would be understandable. 

Of course I want us to win tonight, but the result is not going to make a whole lot of difference to a season which is starting to show a little promise at this stage. Hopefully we’ll win well with the youngsters and fringe players making an impression and none of the players we depend on in our strongest team picking up any knocks. We have some momentum in the Premier League and that’s what has to be of upmost importance to us right now.

That’s it for today.

See you tomorrow.

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