This Wednesday Arsenal will embark upon their 3rd trophy campaign of the season. Historically, Arsenal should start well in this years League Cup competition against League 1’s Coventry.
The past provides positives
In our past 74 meetings with Coventry City we have won 41 games losing only 14. However, we haven’t played the Sky Blues since 2001, so the fixture history won’t help us much with this one, especially as we tend to field a completely different team in this competition.
Also, the League Cup is a competition that usually provides a good run of games for the Gunners. Last time we failed to reach the 4th round was in 2002 when we were beaten 3-2 by Sunderland. Overall Arsenal have reached an impressive total of seven League Cup finals between now and 1968, although we have become famous for falling at the last in this competition, only winning two of our seven trips.
Sky Blues have the Blues
As far as recent form is concerned, Coventry should go down without a fight. The Sky Blue’s are currently enduring one of the worst periods of their recent history, last season they were relegated to the 3rd tier of English football where they haven’t been since the 63/64 seasons. To make matters worse they currently lie in the relegation places without a league win this season.
The club is in real trouble and have already changed managers once this season swapping Andy Thorn for Mark Robins, going through an unpleasant four losses under caretaker Richard Shaw.
Compare this to Arsenal who are unbeaten in all six of their games this season and it looks like a comfortable win for the Gunners. However, knowing Mr Wenger as we do, it’s fairly likely that the team we field on Wednesday will bare no resemblance to any team we’ve put out this season. It will be substantially weakened, but after seeing our reserves decimate lower league opposition in this past, this doesn’t worry me.
Another factor to take into account is that Coventry fans will be very down and the team will see Wednesday night as an opportunity to kick start their season.
Stars under the lights
Since moving to the Emirates, the third round of the League Cup has been showcased as a sort of fan day for us to see the future talents of Arsenal. This being the case it is virtually impossible to guess the line-up against Coventry. However, I can guess at some of the emerging youth prospects likely to be give a run out.
For me I would love to see the German youngster Serge Gnabry start on Wednesday. The player who has been described as having the potential to be a new Fabregas was a surprise inclusion in Arsene Wenger’s Champions League squad. Having watched some footage of Gnabry playing for the reserves, he certainly appears to be an exciting prospect.
With regards to Coventry, it is difficult to pick out their man in form, if indeed there is one. They do however possess experience amongst their ranks. Most notably Kevin Kilbane who has played over 100 times for his country. The ex-Everton and Sunderland man is amongst Coventry’s top scorers this season and has experience of playing against Premier League opposition in the past.
Call me biased but I think Coventry’s best chance of beating Premiership competition comes in the form of 21-year-old Conor Henderson, an impressive young midfielder. Unfortunately Conor is ineligible to play against his parent club, Arsenal.
Line up
As I mentioned earlier, it is virtually impossible to second guess Arsene regarding the League Cup, but here’s a potential line-up which gives are star men a rest and is a good mix of experience and youth.
Shea, Santos, Djourou, Miquel (or Squilacci), Sead Hajrovic, Coquelin, Arshavin, Gnabry, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Ramsey, Giroud.
Although this team might not resemble who we put out against Coventry, I am confident of a win. Also, as Arsenal fans you can be proud that, despite this game being a 3rd round tie in the mickey-mouse cup against a team two tiers below us, the stadium is sold out. This in an awe-inspiring show of support and an example of what makes this club so great.
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