So, we’ve had the managers both say their piece ahead of tomorrow, and from it we at least know one bit of news – James Trafford will start in goal. I guess the second piece that we also know is that Marc Guehi can’t play, but that was already a well-documented situation from the semi-final.

Arteta, as usual, gave basically nothing away, saying that Odegaard and Timber are a ‘we’ll see’, using the smokescreen of an additional training session to avoid giving the media – and City – anything conclusive. Weirdly with Odegaard, the best source of news seems to be his national team manager, Ståle Solbakken, who has been quoted as saying:

If he ends up making the League Cup final squad, we’ll reassess…I would prefer that he builds up his physical condition and gets a proper training period. He can have the opportunity to do that during this international break. So if he calls and says he’s fit, I’m not sure I would include him

I think that is a perfectly sensible approach from a coach who is clearly mindful that he needs his captain at his best for the upcoming World Cup. If only Thomas Tuchel took the same approach. He’s called Up Noni, Saka, Rice and Eze, and whilst Noni and Ebs haven’t had as many minutes this season, Saka has had injuries and plays all the time when fit, as does Rice, so I’m disappointed to see them travel. They should have been told to rest up. Somebody said to me they aren’t joining the eam for the first game, but will be there for the second. I can’t find anything online (haven’t looked too hard, to be fair) that gives any indication of that, but if it’s true, that’s a small blessing, I guess. Likewise, calls to have Dowman in the squad were rightly responded to by Tuchel as “no need to give him that pressure” – at least he’s got that bit right.

As for the other international bits of news, Mosqeura got his first call-up, which is nice, and given he hasn’t played much, I think that’s fine. I’m less happy about Zubi being called up and his situation should be treated the same as Rice’s – neither should be seeing minutes next week. That should also go for Gabriel (especially after what happened to him earlier in the season), Saliba, Trossard, Gyokeres and Havertz – who has only just started to come back. Use them sparingly…..please…

Back to Arteta, though, who cut an understanably confident tone as he looked ahead to this game. I didn’t realise this, but he has a 100% record at Wembley. That’s good, although I hate stats like that, because they are always there to be broken. I remember a stat coming up after we scored in the Man United home game earlier this year, that said something mental like “when Arsenal take the lead, they’ve won 26 out of 27 of their last games”. I don’t know if that was home only, but we promptly lost that game to the worldies that United scored, so what I’m worried about with stats like that is the football gods come a-knocking on our door. Let’s hope not.

The journalists also tried a little bit of tomfoolery by asking questions like “is it about beating Pep” but clearly Arteta was not going to bite there, batting it away as he should. Still, it’s not as bad as those Manchester-based journalists, one of whom asked Pep yesterday whether he was still ‘best frriends and go to dinner’ and if they are still talking after last season, when City players accused Arsenal players of ‘dark arts’. It was a pathetic attempt to get a soundbite ahead of this game and Pep clearly just thought the journalist was being a bit of a dick. He clearly was – this sort of stuff is designed to stir up some kind of Mourinho/Wenger-style rivalry that just isn’t there, and never will be there. They have both been in the game long enough, they’ve managed against each other long enough, they know each other so well, that they aren’t going to suddenly fall out. Or if they do on the side of the pitch, they’re both going to kiss and make up pretty quickly afterwards. That’s just life. People have disagreements, then they get over it, then the friendship endures longer than any short-term passionate situation in the heat of the moment.

The rest of the questions were a bit bland, if you ask me, because it was all about whether getting to cup finals is important, on viewing this game in isolation, or if he uses this situation to motivate his players. All pretty easy stuff to respond to; Pep got a few of the same too and naturally just batted them away. He was asked things like “why are Arsenal so good?” or “will this define your season?” and of course, he just gave out some flowers to our approach and strengths, then stated that it won’t define their season. And I think that’s right, in the same way that it won’t – and shouldn’t – define our season. We have ourselves a great opportunity to win a trophy, but it isn’t THE trophy. It’s a positive situation, but it can’t be something that impacts the players after Sunday. That’s where I don’t know if it is a good thing that there’s an international break or not. Perhaps, if we lose, it’ll act as a bit of a palate cleanser. We then have the FA Cup straight after that, then Sporting away, and given the most stressful games recently have been the Premier League ones, and that’s the main prize, perhaps it is good there is a bit of distance between this League Cup final and the Premier League. Maybe that even makes it a bit of a ‘win-win’; i.e. if we win it, we get the boost, but if we lose it, there is enough space between then and our next game in the league, that the players have time to respond positively.

Of course, I could, as always, be overthinking it WAAAAY too much, but that’s just me, right?

I think that’s probably about all there is worth talking about from the press conferences, so I’ll leave it there and catch you all tomorrow for the full match preview, including my probable/possible line-up, as well as how this game might play out. Catch you all then.