Hello and a very good afternoon to you this fine Wednesday.
It’s the Carling Cup clash with Liverpool tonight and I have to say I’m getting extremely excited. A lot of that has to do with the fact that quite a few big guns will be on show with Samir Nasri set to play his first game of the season, Nicklas Bendtner, Eduardo and Carlos Vela likely to lead the line and Philippe Senderos on display at the back. On the injury front Jack Wilshere, who would almost certainly have played, is out with an ankle problem.
I mentioned yesterday that the manager’s choice of goalkeeper for this fixture would be telling and I’m happy to see he has gone with Lukasz Fabianski. The Pole, who is also playing his first game of the season, will be hoping for better than the last time he played against Liverpool and a good performance could see him in contention for a starting spot in the North London Derby. My personal hope and expectation is that Fabianski’s return will see Manuel Almunia restored to his rightful place as the club’s number one. Regardless, it will be interesting to see how the Pole performs.
Liverpool are likely to play something of a second-string side off the back of their draining win over Manchester United at the weekend. Their two danger men Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard will not be playing however their new midfield signing Alberto Aquilani may make his debut after being named in the squad by Rafa Benitez.
Whatever side Benitez puts out is unlikely to be as strong as ours and at home I fancy us to win this tie. Doing so would give us great momentum going into the Tottenham game and help put a difficult week behind us. Come on Arsenal!
Arsenal FC Weekly Podcast 9: Goalkeepers, complacency and derby day
After an extended absence the Arsenal FC Weekly podcast is back and it’s quite a good one. Jamie Sanderson from Young Guns is back again to discuss the goalkeeper situation, complacency and the big games against Liverpool and Tottenham coming up.
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Have your say on Arsenal v Liverpool or the Arsenal FC Weekly Podcast by leaving a comment.
will arsene wenger make 11 changes;
team shd take this midnight cup seriously, becos it wil give a chance for the team to lift a trophy at last , they will understand what it takes to win a trophy and how it feels, next year league double will be a cake walk
cant wait for the derby
I think it will be a fantastic game, as it always is when we play our gifted youngsters in the CC. I feel pretty confident that we will beat the scousers, but what if we don’t? Do we then send out some of the kids on loan? They surely won’t want to stick around doing nothing.
The young guns will definitely want to impress. I don’t expect anything less than 3-0 at the emirates.
I’m nervously excited to see Senderos back in the team. I’d love the big man to have a stormer and play his way back into the first team proper. If he’s still got the talent he could be the answer to our back four probs. He also scored twice in his international game, both headers I believe. Could be a tough game this. I’m certainly expecting no walk-overs.
It’ll be really interesting to see which keeper plays against Tottenham. I think Arsene is giving them all 3 keepers a chance to fight for the number one spot and I applaud that. It would be a kick in the guts for Almunia if he doesn’t get to play first team football on the weekend though.
Arsenal 3 – Liverpool 1.
I hope he does play Vela, Nasri and Bendtner as they are all attack minded players. I agree the young guns will be well up for it and hopefully will give Liverpool a good beating. I also agree we need a trophy this year and a mix of the above experienced lads and some of the younger players will hopefully pay dividends?
I’m excited for the return of nasri and bendtner and another run out for Eduardo. The team has lacked that killer instinct in the past two games. Not having to play Eboue up top will help this problem.
And I hope Arsene is seriously looking at keepers to buy in January. Mannone played well, but he had two serious blunders. The one against birmingham let them back into the game until arshavin got the third. And the first goal from west ham should have been parried wide.
Vito could very well be Arsenal’s future #1 but this is not the time. Fabianski showed his massive shortcomings last season and Almunia’s extended absence almost certainly shows Arsene’s lack of confidence in him. A top caliber #1 to win Arsenal a trophy this year and possibly next while Vito gets more game time to polish his skills is the ideal situation.
at first thanks for the podcast, long time ago and I like to listen to it, definitely,
secondly, I read about the swine flu today and wondered if the players won’t be inoculated? In Germany the inoculation has started recently, for many persons it is a must because of their profession, a lot of private people will deny it, I don’t count me to the risk persons so I won’t but as a football player? Does anyone know something about that? I read that they take all precaution measures and that sounds as if they won’t be inoculated. Astonishing to my mind. ❓
So excited about the prospect of Vela/ Eduardo/ Bendtner up front.
I think because it is Liverpool though, Wenger may choose to sacrifice one of them and play Nasri on a wing instead of one of the midfield three because of his defensive capabilities.
I hope not. Nasri, Ramsey and Merida in midfield with Vela, Eduardo and B52 up front would be brilliant – let’s hammer the Liverpool youngsters!
Lol B52! Loveshack babbby!
Yeah, we should change the lyrics to suit Nic!
By the way, why is Vela not on this list?
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/arsenal-name-18-man-squad-for-liverpool-clash
What is keeping Almunia out? I don’t get it. Is he still injured? Did he piss Arsene off? Somebody please enlighten me.
am very happy to see it that samir nasir is back with eduardo and bendtner all available for tonights tie-it is going to goiving us positive attacking options and realy liverpool should keep on guard in whatever squad they select for to night-see if we win it.
i am very happy this saeson becouse we played more than last saeson less keep on with our moverment.
Good luck.
for long now i never open or read my mail but iam back now,
thanks Good work.
He’s picked up a last minute knee injury. That’s why.
How bloody frustrating.
@vancouver gooner,
you dont get why almunia isnt in the team???just look at his performances since hes been no.1….better to give either of the youngsters a go hes had his and has shown how average he is..these two hav shown ability and must be allowed to make mistakes so they can learn..manuel simply does not keep enough clean sheets and his reaction times are poor for a player of his experience….no wonder lehman used to be so bemused when le boss left him on the bench
wenger has finally come to his senses in regard to almunia,theres no way le boss will start him in this w/ends massive NL derby havin not played in weeks….god knows the guy is rusty enough when hes playin regularly, vito is num 1 now and its up to fabianski to stake a claim toni
hope senderos has a good game toni altho hel hav to wit sylvestre along side, i think merida wil start the way wenger has been talkin so itl prob be him,nasri ramsey with dudu,nic and vela up top…hopefully wel get cameos from coqelin,sanchez and barazite
just read an article form an interview wit le boss sayin he was gonna loan out merida to levante for a year but changed his mind at the last minute because he says fran has too much quality and thought it wud be too generous to let another team reap the benefits of his talents after arsenal schooling him for the last few years…lookin forward to seein some of this talent on display toni,also wenger has been bigging ramsey up alot…lets be avin you fellas….would love to see frimpong now as hopefully sanchez watt will start in velas absense
I think fabianski should be arsenal no 1. he clearly has the potential and is young but not that young at 24. Vito mannone is too young for 1st choice spot. And also i heard a rumor that wenger will sell gallas in the summer nad relace him with djourou interesting ……
arsenal team to play liverfool is fabianski,gilbert,silvestre,senderos,gibbs,nasri,easmod,merida,ramsey,bendtner,eduardo.
eastmond not easmod,sorry chaps.
yeah george craig eastmond lookin forward to seein him,plays rb and cb aswel
hee hee hee fran u little beauty
..they are really impressing, great stuff so far, but both teams I must say, very offensive style on both sides, best match I have seen of this season so far, quite more exciting than the ones from the first team, maybe because it’s a derby? 🙂
Good morning Brisbane……. great match, incredible tempo over 90 minutes, really enjoyed it ❗ Congratulations!
impressive don’t impressing, isn’t it?
Now i see why Le boss is so confident of the future,these lil chaps sure are the future of the team,great stuff.Just wondering why merida isn´t playing,instead of diaby? I love every aspect of his game,and i think he´ll do well with the big boys.
An excellent result and performance today. So happy to get the week off to a good start and even happier that Bendtner scored the winner. More thoughts later…
great game with two genuine teams goin for it really enjoyable…loved the way we moved the ball from deep in our own half and destroyed them at times.have to say wot a start for craig eastmond he had a super first half,merida v gud but faded after an hour,ramsey excellent but tired and made sloppy errors towards the end although it was understandable as he put in a great shift and merited skys man of the match,but id hav given it to gibbs who put in the most complete 90min performance iv seen in an arsenal shirt in ages,it wud be easy to overlook him with the amount of fine attacking that was done but the kid missed nothin and was winnin headers and pickin himself up and sprinting into 50/50s against a tough combo of degen and kuyt…simply awesome performance
was lookin forward to seein senderos toni but was left still wondering if hes any good at all,shuda conceded a late pen for handling with BOTH hands and it just looks like hes too easy turned and like hes always improvising
great to see dudu and nasri get 90mins and good that nic scored even tho his game was a mixed bag
just a mention for fabianski who put in a gud shift,handling was great and his attacking of crosses was impressive,wud just be worried that hes a bit lax at times but overall he was solid
roll on sat and the deluded spuds
wenger needs to continue mixing youth and experience in the carling cup that was a good mixture tonight,decent game and now for saturday against the spuds…COME ON YOU GUNNERS!
Merida, Ramsey and nasri controlled the game. We all know what Nasri can do and this was just to get him some game time but Ramsey and Merida had a chance to shine and didnt they do it. Merida struck a beauty!! Ramsey was playing slick passing and some of the football our boys played was top class. I love watching the CC but am very excited about this year. I think Wenger got the team spot on, I thought he was going to play a very youthful squad but it was well balanced. We have a number of very talented players and we have Vela and Wilshere also that wil be played in the CC. Good Times.
gee I hope Tony Adams plays well in this game. He has been looking good all season.