Morning all.
It’s big night tonight, a Carabao Cup semi-final first leg against Newcastle. I know this is a competition that ranks lowest in terms of priorities for most people, but once you get to this stage – with a final just over the horizon – you have to take it seriously. It’s why, fitness and availability permitting, I think Mikel Arteta might go a little stronger for this one than Sunday’s FA Cup tie against Man Utd.
That said, I don’t know that there’s a great deal of room for rotation anyway, given all the fitness issues we have. The manager confirmed that Ethan Nwaneri would be missing for a ‘few weeks‘ after picking up an muscular problem against Brighton on Saturday, while the illness in the camp that has affected players like Kai Havertz, Martin Odegaard and Gabriel Martinelli is still an issue.
Even if Havertz is well enough to be in the squad, I don’t think it’s realistic to think he’ll be back to 100% and sprightly enough to start. There’s probably a question mark over Odegaard too who looked like he should have been in bed when he came on against Brighton, but hopefully he’s well enough to lead the team out. Assuming there are no other casualties, we could see a team like this: Raya, Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, LB*, Partey*, Rice, Odegaard, Trossard, Jesus, Martinelli.
I’ve asterisked left-back because after two games in a row, I wonder if Arteta might be cautious with Riccardo Calafiori who is not long back from injury. He could start Myles Lewis-Skelly or Oleksandr Zinchenko if he felt the need for change (I would prefer the former to the latter). I also think there’s a question about how much you can ask of Partey after a lot of minutes this season and 90 minutes at right-back on Saturday. There is scope to give him a rest if there is a need to be careful around his fitness.
Beyond that, there’s very little to work with because of the injury crisis. Arteta said they had to bring in a clutch of young players to fill out the squad for training, and while privately he must feel real dismay at the absences, publicly he’s putting a brave face on it. You can’t sit there in a press conference ahead of a big game and cry about injuries. He says:
It’s a good learning process, not only tactically but also preparation and training with very few players. Today we had seven or eight players with us just to fill the squad which isn’t normal but it’s a weird way to learn, but I’ll take it. I cannot change it so let’s take the things that we can get out of it to be better.
As for tonight’s opposition, there’s some recent history that could make this tasty. Arteta played down the idea of a rivalry with Newcastle, but there’s often an intensity to these games which can spark incidents. It’s more often the games at St James’ Park that have more of an edge, but after 70 years without a trophy, they will be absolutely fired up for this one, and hoping to take advantage of an Arsenal side that is currently fairly depleted and in the midst of a hectic run of games. We also know they have a very physical style, and often get away with challenges we certainly wouldn’t, so that’s something we have to be mindful of.
Hopefully the crowd can play a part tonight. Get behind the team, make it clear to the referee when Newcastle push those boundaries as they almost certainly will. Arteta says:
We’re very excited to play the game in front of our crowd. A semi-final, an opportunity to earn the right to be in a final and that starts tomorrow with two legs. Obviously they’re going to be two long games against a very competitive team, we know that, but very excited and we need a big, big atmosphere in our stadium.
The fact the semi-final is over two legs is absurd at this point, it should be just one game, but hopefully we can get a good result tonight ahead of the game at their place next month. Even if it doesn’t go to plan, you have an opportunity to put things right, but with two big cup ties this week, it’d be great to win this one well before we consider the FA Cup on Sunday. Fingers crossed.
Right, I’m gonna leave it there for now. We have a preview podcast available right now on Patreon. Join us later for live blog coverage, plus you’ll get the match report, goal clips, reaction, player ratings and much more over on Arseblog News.
Until then!
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