I am absolutely DISGUSTED by the lack of performance in the League Cup.
Just kidding. I couldn’t be any more neutral. In fact, I see it as an advantage.
Would a nice little run in a cup have been nice? Sure. If we’d won the league cup though, would anyone really have cared? How many of you can remember a banging League Cup final? How many people talk about the stain on Arsene Wenger’s record for NEVER winning the trophy in his 60-year tenure at Arsenal?
Here’s the reality, we don’t have the squad to battle on 4 fronts this season, there are bigger fish to fry.
Liverpool went all quadruple-hungry last season and ended up with just two cups, partially in my opinion because they overextended themselves and paid the price. They were dead in that Spurs game at the end of the season and that killed them.
So what other reference points can we pull from?
When Chelsea won the league in 2016-17 under Antonio Conte, they dropped out of the league cup in the 4th round (lost to West Ham), and they weren’t in Europe. Do you think them racking up a 93 point season might have had a small correlation to less games? I think so.
When Leicester City pulled off that miracle the season before, how do you think they did in the cups? You don’t remember? They lost to Hull in the 4th round of the League Cup and Spurs in the 3rd round of the FA Cup. Do you think keeping their extremely thin squad firing all season might have had something to do with less cup games? I think so.
No one EVER remembers legendary League Cup games because there really aren’t that many. The competition is so uninteresting Bournemouth wasn’t on TV anywhere in the world. Can you believe we’re in 2022 and the only way I could watch the game was because some legend at the ground live-streamed?
The fish we are frying are bigger, jucier and they’re going to be more delicious.
Arsenal needs to make a move on the Premier League this season, if we’re going to do that with seriousness, we need to have a VERY fresh squad H2 next season. I’m pretty sure the next round of the league cup was going to land BEFORE we played West Ham after the break, so we’re dodging a stupid fixture in a period of the season where we’ll have to play Manchester City twice.
I do love that every time our second string has a bad game people are like ‘OUR SQUAD IS SO BAD’… like there are teams in the Premier League that have world-class second-string squads. I mean, outside City, who has unlimited funds, who is rocking a banging 2nd team of destroyers?
Spurs starting 11 were beaten by Forest. Liverpool were taken to penalties by Derby. Where else should we be looking here? Chelsea? Please. If there was a club where second strings could do what the first team could, you’d have 11 really unhappy players and the dressing room would be a mess.
Arsenal has a pretty decent squad. It’s maybe 3 players away from being world-class. We need a winger, a number 6, and a new number 8 to share minutes with Xhaka. There’s no major overhaul required. Will players move on in the summer? Probably. Reiss Nelson will go, Sambi Lokonga might be upgraded by Charlie Patino, there will be some names that just won’t accept the bench. But that’s football for you.
I keep seeing people say the gap between the first team and the second string is massive.
Lose Gabi Martinelli and ESR is stepping in.
Lose Gabi Jesus and I genuinely think Eddie would do a really good job.
Bill Saliba get injured, Benny Blanco steps in
No Zinchenko, Tomi or Tierney step in
Thomas Partey gets injured, Big Mo steps in, he ain’t perfect, but he’s capable of being in a midfield that beats United, Chelsea, and West Ham
We’ve dealt with injuries well this season because we haven’t had 8 at the same time. As long as that remains the case next season, there’s not going to be a painful dip in performance like there was last season.
Right, short one from me today, I’ll see you in the comments.
