It’s League Cup match day today and I don’t know about you, but sometimes it’s nice to not feel the pressure of the Premier League or Champions League and just ‘watch’ an Arsenal game, right?

It’s a little like the summer friendlies. You can watch, you can have your preferences for victory being The Arsenal, but it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, which is what I feel about the League Cup. Of course, there will be rival fans saying pathetic things like ‘warra trophy’ and all that nonsense which I just ignore and of course, it would be good to see Arsenal win something this season. The benefit of the League Cup is you can get one tucked under your metaphorical armpit in February if you get to the final and do the business, but Arsenal could – and should – have bigger fish to fry when we get to the new year. So I’m hoping that whilst I want us to go far in every competition, we’re doing this one in addition to our other exploits, not as a sole focus.

Mikel Arteta was asked about team news and not that we needed it but he made it pretty clear that there would be rotation tonight and, given the strength and depth we have in the squad (although judging by the Noni and Hincapie news one wonders how much longer we can have that – will talk about that in a bit), I suspect that we’ll see a fair few players who will get minutes that have been limited so far. We know that it’ll mean a start for Kepa because Mikel mentioned it, but I suspect there will be some for the likes of Mosquera, Norgaard and Myles Lewis-Skelly for sure. But beyond that, you just don’t know what Mikel wants to do, because we’ve once again been hit with another semi-lengthy injury to noni Madueke.

Honestly, at this point, I don’t know that to say. The Arteta Naysayers will say that he overworks them in training and that’s what causes the injuries. I’m not sure of that because a) we have no idea what their load is like compared to the likes of other Premier League teams, and b) we had a relatively injury-free season two and three seasons ago and I highly doubt the intensity of his training sessions have changed that dramatically by then. But here we are with Noni out for what Arteta described as ‘a few weeks’ but Ornstein said could be up to two months. We have to hope that we see Noni again in October but, once again, we have to try to manage load with an ever-increasing injury list. The hope was also to have good news on Kai in the not-too-distant future but Arteta said that was still ‘months’ and so I worry he’s going to be gone til’ November too. If we don’t see him until November then that’s one of our key potent attacking players that has missed just over a third of the season already.

Still, at least we got some good news about Odegaard, who Arteta said was back in training but I hope that we don’t see him tonight. Given how cursed we seem to be in every game so far this season, I just want to see all key players sat at home tonight. I mean no disrespect to PortVale, but we really can’t be seeing the likes of Gabriel, Saliba, Zubimendi, Saka, Gyokeres playing tonight. We simply can’t afford to lose those players. And with the news that Hincapie has picked up an injury too (a reminder of the Arsenal injury curse that afflicted Partey, who was never injured at Atletico Madrid before he put on an Arsenal shirt and spent half his time out) Arteta is going to have to think long and hard about how he sets up tonight.

With what we know from his press conference, my hope is that we see the following:

Kepa

White   –   Mosquera   –   Gabriel   –   MLS

Norgaard

Nwaneri   –   Merino

Dowman   –   Martinelli   –   Trossard

This is what I hope Arteta will do, although if I’m honest I’d rather not risk Big Gabi, but I can’t see what the other options are. Play Calafiori? Given his injury record I’d rather he sat this one out. I look at our midfield and I just think it would be better to see Merino and Nwaneri alongside each other. We all commented about how the midfield was a combative, duel-winning, midfield that we saw against City and that didn’t work against that opponent, but I think with merino and Nwaneri alongside each other you get the balance of the duel and the creative spark, so hopefully that’s what we see.

Then, up top, let’s have a Martinelli experiment as I mentioned in yesterday’s blog. Let’s see him and Trossard rotating in the centre and let’s see if we can pump up their confidence with a good display against lower league opposition. It is another opportunity for them to stake a claim and I think that’s what they should be seeing this as.

Normally I have a look at our opponent in these sorts of games but again, I think today is more about what we do and if you’ve got a team of first teamers out there like we should have, then you have to be just saying that we play our game and let our clear quality overcome our opponents. I know it doesn’t always work when you just rotate the whole team, but if the above side is selected as I’ve predicted above, you don’t have players who have been out in the cold suddenly being chucked into the first XI. With the exception of Kepa and Norgaard (because he’s been injured) every one of those players has got at least some minutes this season and so my expectation is that these guys slot into the team as if they are regulars. Play them, rest players for the battle on Sunday, to give us the best opportunity of picking up three points at a ground that has been incredibly hard for us to pick up points in recent seasons.

I’ll leave it there for today. Be back to more with a digest of what unfolded at Vale Park. have a good’un folks.