Morning folks – here we are at another match day and this time we kick off our League Cup campaign – a home tie against Bolton Wanderers and, I think the key question all of us want answered for this evening’s game is:
How many first team players are going to be rested tonight?
Because let’s face it, this may be a trophy and it may be an opportunity for a shiny silver trinket, but it comes pretty low down on the pecking order and with players injured and suspended for this evening, it’s not one that you want to see any of our key players playing any part in. The challenge Arteta has is that – as I mentioned in my piece yesterday – he doesn’t have a massive list of options to select from in terms of rotational starting XI players. That is in part due to the fact we have the injuries we have, but it’s also due in part to the fact that the squad is a little smaller than it was last season too.
Last season’s squad when we played Brentford had an almost entirely rotated XI; Ramsdale, Kiwior, Jorginho, ESR, Nelson, Nketiah and Sagoe Jr all started. There was a smattering of some of the regulars like White, Gabriel and Havertz, but that was most likely because we were away from home against a Premier League side. Tonight we face a Bolton Wanderers side in League One currently 19th in the division having played six, lost three, drawn one and won two matches, scoring seven and conceding 11 in the process.
This is also not a Bolton side of yesteryear that will come to play physical and “they don’t like it up ’em” of the Allardyce era. That face of Bolton is long gone, replaced by a possession style of football that will look to pop the ball around; there will be no route one lobs up to a big strapping centre forward. I even read an article about a week ago before they played Reading where one of their midfielders say they are coached differently to most League One sides, that they have to stick to their principles regardless of the opposition and that pragmatism in games like this just isn’t something they are going to do.
With the little information I have on Bolton it seems clear to me that they are going to try to have a play at us tonight and hopefully that means we can pick them off. I also hope that it means Arteta knows that this will be a game of football, rather than a kick-and-rush, direct, match in which there will be some boots left in by some lower league clobbermeisters. That’s why I am also hopeful that he completely rotates this evening. Chuck in as many debutants as you can find. But I don’t think he’ll do that and as he mentioned in his press conference yesterday he says that they don’t have the volume of players available to make 11 changes. If you look at our history in this competition too, he’s tended to have a smattering of first teamers in tonight, so I think we might see that again – despite the opposition being two leagues below us.
The big question is on the ‘keeper. Neto being cup tied really is a pain in the arse, because he certainly would have played and now that Raya has been seen with a bandage on his leg, I do wonder whether Mikel is minded to risk him, or dip in to the Under-21s to give one of our youth ‘keepers a goal. We have no Karl Hein as a third ‘keeper, we have no Neto, if Raya is injured then we might need to look at Brian Okonkwo perhaps? There’s noises that Setford is injured but to play Okonkwo would be a big risk; heck, playing any of them is a big risk tonight but if Raya isn’t fully fit then it’s also a risk to play him. Personally I’d give one of the kids a go. We have bigger fish to fry and given the players I think who might be in front of him, I don’t think he will have too much to do. I suspect Arteta will go with
Goalkeeper x
White – Heaven – Kiwior – Lewis-Skelly
Jorginho
Nwaneri – Rice
Sterling – Gabriel Jesus – Martinelli
Rice because he will have missed the Spurs game and because he is a very robust player, Gabriel Jesus because he played just a cameo on Sunday and I suspect he will also go back to the bench at the weekend, then Martinelli because I think he’ll be targeting a goal to add to his impressive performance against City where he bagged an assist. Many of us – me included – have been saying that all he probably needs is one goal to go in off his arse or something, so to give him a good shout at breaking his duck it feels like a game like this might give him an opportunity against an opponent who I’m not sure are going to sit in a massively deep low block. So there might be space for him.
And when you look at that side, it feels pretty decent enough to get a result against Bolton, regardless of who plays in goal. The other argument there of course is that even if he has a minor knock, if he’s going to spend most of the evening as a spectator, it might not be as big a risk to play him after all. Not personally an angle I’d be keen to experiment with though. It also means that – all being well, you can almost completely rotate our team for the home game against Leicester; we could have Raya, Timber, Gabriel, Saliba, Calafiori, Partey, Havertz, Rice, Saka, Trossard all starting against the Foxes and that would represent 10 players all rotated from tonight’s game.
There was some other questions around the weekend just gone, around how he and the team have already moved on, as well as some questions on ‘dark arts’ that I thought he answered superbly, saying “I’ve been there before. I was there for four years. I have all of the information” on City players’ responses to ‘dark arts’. He knows and we know what and who City players are, so nobody is fooled, least of all Mikel.
Other than that, there wasn’t loads he gave away, as he didn’t speculate on Zinchenko, Odegaard or any player that was missing from the weekend. But we wouldn’t expect that either.
And with that I shall leave it for today and bid you all a happy match day.
Catch you all tomorrow.
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