Gunners To Catch Twenty-Two?
Jan 21st, 2008 by 'holic
Injuries to Philippe Senderos and Johan Djourou, coinciding with the absence of Kolo Toure and Alex Song, mean a stronger Arsenal side than expected will travel to the marshlands in the northern outskirts of the capital for the second leg of the Carling Cup semi-final.
William Gallas now looks certain to lead his willing band of cadets into enemy territory. Arsenal.com reports he is likely to be partnered by either Justin Hoyte or Gilberto Silva at the heart of the defence. I expect it will be Hoyte, with Gilberto adding experience to the midfield in a rare first-team outing. Armand Traore should take a place in defence charged with protecting Lukasz Fabianski. If I am right that also means a likely start for Bacary Sagna at right-back which is where Hoyte would have been expected to appear.
Gilberto is likely to be joined in midfield by Denilson and Abou Diaby plus, I expect, one other conscript from the more regular starters. It is possible that Alex Hleb could get the nod on the right.
Nicklas Bendtner and Theo Walcott are likely starters up front. Interestingly Gavin Hoyte and Mark Randall are on reserve team duty against Birmingham tonight. That leaves Kieran Gibbs and Henri Lansbury as likely occupants of the bench. Nacer Barazite is back in training after getting injured at Blackburn, but this may be a game too soon for him. That leaves a couple of spaces to senior players who may be asked to come on and do a job if, like last season, the contest goes to extra-time. Perhaps Cesc Fabregas and Emmanuel Adebayor?
There will be no ‘holic pound planted on this one. The heart tells me that side is good enough to get a result, although extra-time and penalties would be a strong possibility if that were to happen. The head is telling me something unthinkable. Stupid head!
You can see from the way the marshmen have prepared just how important this game is to them. King and Keane were rested on Saturday with one eye very firmly on what must be their last realistic opportunity to claim a European berth next season.
They must still be wondering though if they have what it takes mentally to beat Arsenal. Humiliated in the Premiership contest at the Lane in September, they failed to grab the advantage against an out of sorts young Gunners side in the first leg. Psychologically they have demons to exorcise if they are to finally beat Arsenal for the first time in twenty-two games.
If you are one of the lucky ones with a ticket tomorrow, take care. I hope you have a good night. As I remember from 1968 and 1987 it is a great feeling to win a semi-final there!
Arsenal TV
For those who are following this saga, I have today received this response from Arsenal.
“Arsenal TV will not be available on Virgin Media at launch. Arsenal would like to apologise for this delay and re-assure all supporters that we are working with Virgin and Setanta Sports to resolve this as soon as possible. Arsenal TV will be available to Virgin customers in the future and the date will be publicised widely as soon as it is confirmed.”
Arsenal, like Virgin Media, are very keen to assure us that we will get the service, it is just a matter of when. I’m glad to see that those two parties are making all the right noises. Setanta, however, are not. Tomorrow it will be a week since I, as a customer, asked them to let me know when I could expect to receive the channel through their broadcast partner. Their silence is deafening.
For those who have added their comments from around the globe I have also today asked the FA Premier League to clarify their restrictions on broadcasting overseas. I remember contacting them with a query last season and it will probably take a few days for them to respond. Let’s just hope they haven’t outsourced their customer service operation to Setanta!
10 Responses to “Gunners To Catch Twenty-Two?”
not feeling too optimistic bout this one esp after what happened at the emirates last week. i have to say um amazed at Wenger i mean we got off ligtly ast week with that performance.
i guess he is thinking that maybe after that performance the Carling-side will learn from their mistakes but it could also go the other way in that Wenger should learn from HIS mistakes and change that side but we do have a stubborn manager and winning the Carling Cup with the A-Team will not be as sweet as winning it with the Carling side that way he can get to say ‘I Told You This Team Can Do It’
……but is that what we really want????i mean its all fine and dandy grooming our side and showing what they are capable of but they will be the first to admit they were outclassed last week and they would rather have a trophy than be nearly men AGAIN!!!!
….um done ranting um jus not expecting much tomorrow and um trying hard not to blame Wenger for my nervous disposition…
The response from Arsenal concerning the TV issue is basically the same content that they posted on Arsenal.com prior to the launch. They could have expanded on it.
I take your point John, and agree we need something a bit more concrete. Two of the three parties involved have now confirmed it WILL happen, though what that says about the silence of Setanta is anyones’ guess. ‘The when’ is what they should be concerned with now. Clearly a lot of people have taken subscriptions expecting the service to be available and these major companies should be putting in a full shift to clear the obstacles and make it happen quickly.
casicky, I’m swerving from concern to supreme optimism about tomorrow, but in no way shape or form can you criticise the boss for wanting to go with the second string. What will you say if he plays the first team and we lose two or three players for Premier League and Champions League matches to come? The Beer Cup is a bonus, not a priority in any way shape or form.
I have contacted Setanta Oz to see if they will be screening Arsenal TV and this was their response,
“Hi,
FA Premier League rules state you can only licence 2 club channels per territory (Australia). We signed deals with MUTV and Chelsea TV before Arsenal TV launched so therefore we will be unable to broadcast another club channel at the moment.
We will review our club channel situation in the near future, so things may change, but for now, Arsenal TV will not be available on Setanta Australia.”
I have forwarded their email onto the Premier League asking if this is correct and how can it be fair if it is?
Reserving the League cup for the reserves is a great motivating move because by making it clear that it’s theirs to gain, the kids have to be up for it every time if they want to get more games. It’s also a confidence booster – now the kids know they have what it takes to stay with the first XI of other teams.
I suspect the period just prior to the Diarra sale caused some internal turmoil and that affected the youngsters. When Diarra himself later admitted that he took himself out of the squad, he might have done it very near game time and that must have shaken the confidence of some in the team. Let’s hope that with the sale finalised, everyone’s mind is back to the task at hand.
[…] visit White Shite Lame tonight in a Carling Cup Tie. ‘holic calls the competition which Le Boss uses our reserves or youngster to blood in talent “The […]
they are fired up for this one, i have read no less than 4 articles on my way to work this morning telling me that jenas, keane, dawson and poyet think tonight is the night they break the jinx! what jinx? who cares?
it’s about time they took responsibility for their inability to beat us, and should they do so tonight they should still embarrassed in their praise for their team, my god if we took that long to beat a rival i’d admit we weren’t as good.
let them win, it’ll mean they get over-excited next time we meet in the premiership where it really matters!
oh, and she wore a yellow ribbon 😉
Have the spuddies heaped too much pressure on themselves?! They are the biggest bottle jobs ever, it’s not the final that would excite me if we win, it’s the chance to really rip the piss out of the spuds!!
PS: Dino……..don’t I know you?! AVE it!!
are we not putting a lot of our eggs in one basket here???i mean ok its up to the kids to stand up and be counted but we are a squad arent we so any comp we get into will have the use of the squad why not the Carling Cup??
really want ths cup badly i dont know why maybe coz i feel anything else will jus be a stretch too far for us.we so close and i jus dont see why we dont jus go for it???
we might get injuries but an injury will come whether int he champs lge,prem or carling cup it will come so we might as well grab what we have a chance at gettting…
on the other hand will still be coming on here to complain if we win the carling cup and lose out on the rest,um jus greedy … bear with me.