LEAGUE CUP LIFE OR DEATH MODE
Yes, yes. Fear not, we are officially at the stage of the season where the cups mean life or death. A win will have me doing trending TikTok dances through the streets, and a loss will have me snot face crying into a camera at a bar doing a very regrettable tequila fueled livestream.
Two games to a final? Tantalizing. I once again get to write that the first final I saw Arsenal win was the Coca-Cola League Cup final in 1993 at Wembley Stadium with my dad. He took me to see WWF that weekend, where I saw Virgil and Earthquake. A fine adventure.
The point of the memory lane wander is that it’s kind of crazy to me that we’ve not won it in such a long time. We’ve made finals, losing to Birmingham, Chelsea, and more recently Manchester City.
Look at some of those names. I don’t have bad memories of those players, but the memories are like old-school friends you used to steal chocolate bars with on your paper round. Immensely fond good times, but we’ve all grown up now. We’re eating M&S canapés, decrying AI slop and the pondering the new luxury of disconnection. We’re in a new era of classier stories, words like verticality, terms like out of pocket and rapid transitions. We’re drinking fine bourbons, not Lemonade Hooch in a carpark. I don’t want to go back to earlier times; I want to see that my club has matured, that we can press on, grow as a team, and finally make something of ourselves. It looks like the stage for that is already was set in the first semi. Man City beat Newcastle 2-0 in the other leg, which probably means they’re through to the final. Arteta would LOVE to get that match-up and bury Pep in his last season.
We’ll have to see off Rosenior and that new manager bounce he could possibly bring to the table. I’m not really sure what to think of this guy. He looks like the kind of guy who is about to upsell you some Facebook Advertising or fire you after a reorg at a wealth management company. He carries himself like he’s embraced the imposter syndrome and knows how the film ends. He’s extremely pleasant and likable, and I have to be blunt here, that is a weakness when you’re a Chelsea manager.
What can we hope for? That the new manager bounce is a dead one and this is a big miss by the Board at the club. In his defense and Maresca’s, it’s hard to do much with a group of very inexperienced players that have high highs and low lows. The squad lacks stability, and Chelsea has got into a habit of selling really good players and bringing in younger players that aren’t quite at the level. I’m really not sure how you go from Nico Jackson to Liam Delap, or Madueke to Garnacho and Gittens. But it is what it is. On their day, they’ll be excellent, but lately, there haven’t been too many of those days.
Arsenal has a new batch of injury worries that include Hincapié, Saliba, and Trossard. I have no intel on this, but my suspicion is Arteta might be resting these players and using injuries or illness as cover for the fans.
That still leaves us a fairly decent team to pick from. I might switch back to Raya in goal after the off-key performance from Kepa in the last game. Left-back, we really need Myles to shine because his form is the biggest concern at the club right now. Right-back, we’ll see if Ben White can hack the pace for a second game in four days. Centre-backs are going to have to be Big Gabs and Nørgaard.
In midfield, I’d really rather not see Zubimendi for this one, and if possible, I’d like to see Rice rested. But I think we’re going to see one of them, and it might be Declan Rice dropping in at 6. Ethan should get another run in midfield and maybe Merino at left 8.
Up top, can we look past a Martinelli and Jesus pairing again? On the right, can we rely on Madueke to shake away the nerves and put in a BIG performance at both ends of the pitch? Or will we revert to Gyökeres again to give him another chance to improve on the nothingness of his last 10 or so outings?
The home leg is the second leg, so a draw or a narrow loss is no disaster. That’s why I’d like to see Arteta rest more players in this game because the fans aren’t going to accept a rotated team at the Emirates.
This is one of those moments that will be a big test for Arteta: can he resist the urge to go all guns blazing when he’s so close to a trophy? I always refer back to that home game against Sporting in the Europa League that lost us Saliba and Tomiyasu, cratering our season. The League Cup is a lovely day out, and sure, a small trophy would be nice, but if we lose major players to win the League Cup and tank the league, no one will be saying “well, at least we won a trophy.” Jurgen Klopp was always in quadruple contention, and it was usually the undoing of Liverpool’s seasons. I hope Arteta is sensible.
In other bits of news, Per Mertesacker is exiting Arsenal after 15 years with the club. He’s been running the academy for a long time, and he’s done a very impressive job nurturing young players, building fine young men, and watching some of them saunter into the first team and stay there. He’s been pure Arsenal, and his London-Germanic accent is an absolute treat to listen to.
I suspect the club will look to move on to a new Academy leader who can take them to the next level in terms of sales. All the big clubs look at the income Man City brings in through their sprawling academy. Over £200m across five years. They buy best-in-class kids at every level, they have a good loans operation, and they get humongous fees for their biggest names. Arsenal hasn’t had too many good loans, and we haven’t really done well from a fees perspective in comparison to the very best.
The core of the academy is doing great stuff; we’re putting very fit kids, who are robust and technically excellent, in positions to start first-team games. But there’s a lot more we could be doing to max out revenue, raise the floor of the academy, and lean on the loans system to get kids more experience, a lot faster.
Ok, enjoy the game this evening. If you want to hear the podcast after, you’ll have to bag yourself a membership. The cup games are exclusive. Also, jump on the Therapy Session with me and Jacob. x