Arsenal’s FA Cup Trip To Blackpool Previewed

Arsenal face a tricky FA Cup third round trip to Blackpool this evening. With fourth place in the Premier League their first priority and the Europa League in second place it leaves the FA Cup a distant third. It’s a competition we have won more than any other club though and we have won it three times in the last five seasons too.

I have no doubt Unai Emery will make a few changes from the team that struggled to find any rhythm against Fulham, but still managed to win 4-1. The festive schedule was very tough for every team and the players are bound to be tired so he has a chance to rest a few weary legs as well as giving some game time to those on the fringes. Our next league game isn’t until next week so there is plenty of time for players to regroup and regain their strength.

I imagine we will see Petr Cech in goal with Ainsley Maitland-Niles in defence and maybe even Zach Medley too. The rest of the defence will probably be made of more first choice players, but I would hope Laurent Koscielny is rested as he clearly needs a little more recovery time from his long injury lay off. We might see Carl Jenkinson too, but I have a feeling he doesn’t really feature in the manager’s plans.

In midfield both Mohamed Elneny and Matteo Guendouzi should feature and Aaron Ramsey must be a shoe-in seeming as he didn’t start against Fulham. If the reports are to be believed he has more or less signed a pre-contract agreement with Juventus and will join them on a free transfer in the summer. It has also been reported that he turned down a bigger offer from PSG and we turned down a cash offer from Juventus to take him immediately. I would be surprised if we turned down a good fee considering he will go for free in the summer, but our squad is very short at the moment and he certainly has a part to play for the rest of the season.

If all three of those players do play it doesn’t leave too much room for Bukayo Saka, Joe Willock, Eddie Nketiah and Emile Smith-Rowe. All four of them would hope to play from the start today, but we might only see two of them with the others possibly coming off the bench. I wouldn’t be surprised if Alexandre Lacazette was in the team too as he might have a little more in the tank than others considering how often he has been substituted recently.

We beat Blackpool 2-1 at the Emirates a few months ago in the Carabao Cup and it won’t be too easy to repeat that on their patch. They’re a mid-table League One team and we can’t take them too lightly, but equally it’s a game we should win. There’s talk of a boycott by the home fans which means there might well be more Arsenal fans than Blackpool fans at the game which would be a little odd to say the least.

I imagine the manager will have a strong bench in case he needs to call on a few first teamers to rescue the game. Arsene Wenger made the mistake of giving himself no real options from the bench at this stage last season when we went out 4–2 away to Nottingham Forest. The FA Cup might not be our first priority, but I would be very surprised if the manager didn’t want to go as far as possible in a competition which has been out only route to silverware since 2004.

That’s it for today.

See you tomorrow.