And so we begin our annual League Cup campaign with the Mickey Mouse aka Carling aka Capital One Cup. We begin with yet another home tie. 6 of the Gunners’ last 8 League Cup ties have been at home. This already being an advantage in and of itself, but add to that Coventry City’s woes this season with the club having yet to record a victory this season (8 games running) in League One after their relegation last year.
Arsene will follow his typical approach to the Carling Cup and use this match as an opportunity to work in some of our younger players, as well as our squad and established players in need of minutes. We will see the long, awaited return of Emmanuel “I love Red Cards” Frimpong, so that will be nice. The squad will look like the following:
**UPDATE:** Starters: Martinez, Miquel, Djourou, Angha, Yennaris, Santos, Coquelin, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Walcott, Arshavin, Giroud.
Subs: Shea, Squillaci, Bellerin, Frimpong, Eisfeld, Gnabry, Chamakh
My guess is as good as yours as to who will be starting, but you’d have to imagine Djourou, Santos, Coq, Frimps, Chamberlain, Walcott, and Arshavin will at minimum feature if not start, with your pick on Giroud or Chamakh up front.
Match starts at 2:45 EST. LiveBlog will be active starting at 2:30 EST. We’ve got a sold out match today, with over 9,000 Coventry fans traveling today, so it should be a special one. If you’ve got a good stream available, please post into the comments or LiveBlog for others to make use of the stream.
On paper, this match should be a breeze for even our youth filled squad, but for whatever reason little clubs seem to want to show up for the match whenever they face Arsenal. Regardless, my prediction is 3-0 Arsenal. A clean, injury-free, end-to-end win today should keep the spirits up & up, and ready our squad for the big match this Saturday against Chelski.
The draw for the next round will be made this evening. Extra time and penalties will take place in the event of a draw. There will be no replay.
UP THE ARSE!
