There's pride at stake as well as progression to the next round, it is Chelsea after all and losing to them is never good. We'll rotate for sure but I'd like to think the squad will be much stronger than last night.
There's pride at stake as well as progression to the next round, it is Chelsea after all and losing to them is never good. We'll rotate for sure but I'd like to think the squad will be much stronger than last night.
We can't throw the competition just because we are stretched in the more illustrious ones. If we actually treat it seriously this year, with the improvement of certain players and the additions we've made we can seriously win this. I don't like to admit it but we aren't going to win the prem or the CL..... More likely that we will win the latter imo and even then that is a very slim chance.
Further additions can be made for the second half of the season push. Get Adebayor if we bloody have to. Even that idiot would have prevented penalties last night, probably on his own. He has got to be better than Bendtner, Akpom and Park who the manager would play over his dead body.
We have the home advantage against the chavs and should make the most of it. It may only be a slight advantage but an advantage it is nonetheless. I realise our away form is good but you'd still rather be playing at home in a one off cup game and who knows what our actual form will be going into that game.
As already mentioned, to have the likes of Rosicky and Flamini (who incidentally know each others game very well) will bode well for fielding a first team punctuated with a few rotations. Vermaelen (who I don't believe will win his place back in the first team) Jenkinson, Rosicky, Monreal...... too bad we can't throw Chamberlain in as he is the sort of player you'd want in a game like that too.
Last edited by Blink 1nce Quince 2wice; 26-09-2013 at 01:32 PM.
No way should we throw this cup comp away. Realistically we won't win the league this year despite our glowing start.
We aren't winning the champions league.
COC and FA cup are our best hope.
Physioroom has all of our injuries back by the Chelsea game, barring AOC who is out till Nov and Diabanogo who are, of course, listed as having "no return date".Originally Posted by Japan Shaking All Over
I agree with those points but we have a thread-bare squad with virtually the same XI playing in 3 other competitions. If we use them in the COC too we're just going to run them into the ground, or worse giving them a big risk of picking up injuries.
We can't even afford to rotate in the league/CL since there's such a big gap in quality in our reserves.
Physioroom is rarely right on return dates (for Arsenal ones at least, I don't bother checking anyone else's). If it's based on our estimates it's definitely wrong
Last edited by Penguin; 26-09-2013 at 07:08 PM.
We can rotate sufficiently in most areas providing we don't have something of the crisis we seem to be heading towards.... (doh)!
The problem is we just don't have anything like suitable quality at centre forward and ideally in that game against Chelsea you'd want a top forward. which is why I would probably just play Giroud in that game regardless. Unless of course he has literally played 2 days before.
Dortmund (H) - CL- Tuesday 22nd October
Crystal Palace (A) -PL - Saturday 26th October
Chelsea (H) - COC - 29/30 October
Liverpool (H) - PL - Saturday 2nd November
Dortmund (A) - CL - Wednesday 6th November
Manchester United (A) - PL - Sunday 10th November
That's a testing fixture list even without half your squad depleted. Feo, Cazorla and Rosicky should all be available for these games and maybe Podolski and Sanogo too. But it's inevitable that another handful will join Oxlade and Diaby in the hospital by then.
In December, we have:
Everton (H) - PL - Saturday 7th
Napoli (A) - CL - Wednesday 11th
Man City (A) - PL - Sat 14th
Possible COC Quarter Final - 17th/18th
Chelsea (H) - PL - Saturday 21st
Even with only 3 official CBs, our defensive options are looking solid. The striking situation could become really desperate going into all these games though. If we weren't relying on rookies and fat samurais, I'd be confident of the team's chances. Hopefully Chuba's time has come.
Don't care.
We are 8 years without a trophy.
Chuck the COC and FA cup and it will be 9.
Our squad is not good enough to win the league or CL even with Ozil. Being realistic, unless we spend on 1-2 top top players in Jan we will not win the league. CL is out of the question whatever happens.
So we cannot chuck the COC and FA cup away.
The kids will have to play the cup games. The squad just isn't big enough to go for all 4.
There's no guarantee we'll beat Chelsea even if we use our first team. Their players will be much fresher because they have a squad big enough to rotate. Even a player of the quality of Mata is struggling to get games. The other option for us is to rotate a bit in the league, but with only the likes of Ryo, Gnabry and Bendtner to call on it doesn't look too good.
It doesn't make sense to sacrifice the league or CL while we're still in it. What kind of message does that send?
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