It’s Chelsea v Arsenal the Carabao Cup semi-final 1st leg at Stamford Bridge this evening.
Can the Gunners bounce back from defeat to Nottingham Forest just three days ago? Here are tonight’s official line-ups, and the sight of Alexis Sanchez on the bench will be sure to raise more questions about his future.
Chelsea: Courtois; Azpilicueta (c), Christensen, Rudiger; Moses, Kante, Fabregas, Drinkwater, Alonso; Hazard, Morata.
Subs: Eduardo, Luiz, Zappacosta, Bakayoko, Willian, Pedro, Batshuayi
Arsenal: Ospina, Chambers, Mustafi, Holding, Bellerin, Xhaka, Wilshere, Maitland-Niles, Welbeck, Iwobi, Lacazette
Subs: Macey, Mavropanos, Mertesacker, Nelson, Elneny, Walcott, Sanchez
There is no better time for Laca to find his shooting boots. Come on Gunners
So far, he has not looked “WORLD CLASS”.
Welbeck looks hardly plan C.
Giroud we like to play as plan B is going to leave.
If we don’t get someone like Draxler who can anchor left wing when Alexis leaves and still have potential up top as a CF, I’m not sure what our thinking is.
COYG
Let’s not be shit again !!!!
Coyg
let’s not be shit again
LNBSA
MAGA (make Arsenal great again)
Yeah, the problem with that slogan is that it conjures one the biggest idiots in political history.
or just history.
I thought it was Make Arsene Go Away but yours is better
LNBSEA
Let’s not be shit EVER again
COYG
I am scared! This team looks depressing, with very little creativity. Hope we don’t get a shellacking.
The entire spine is missing.. and it looks like they are out for revenge – this could get very embarrassing.
As some bloggers have covered we have playing as a bunch of individuals mostly this season.
Hopefully this is a game where Wenger is going in with a game plan and maybe after even practicing the defensive aspects as well the last couple of days after the shambolic performance in the last game.
Welcome to life after Sanchez and Ozil.
Hmm Chelsea seems to have put out their strongest team.
Although we are missing Ozil from the squad and Sanchez from the starting XI, I’m wearing my lucky pants (didnt for the FA Cup game 🙁 ) and sitting in the lucky chair, so I’m hopeful 🙂
Thank you. Our season is saved now
Cheers to that, with my lucky beer.
Danny Wellbeck in the 1st eleven. End of days.
Nah, he’ll score tonight. The question is, with which body part?
My £5 is on either his left bollock or just spinning of an ear!
he’s due for one off his head at some point. He’ll try to score with his shoulder, but it will go in off his head 😉
Or he’ll try to kick it, end up shinning it onto his forehead and it will trickle in.
He’s like the John Virgo of football.
I hope it’s the latter for Danny Boy!
I’m guessing he will finally strike it cleanly but be way off target and hit Rudiger square in his balls and in.
I reckon it’ll be off his coccyx while facing towards the goal… how that might happen I have no idea but this is Welbeck after all.
Same for Iwobi, the other son of daddy Wenger. No end product from these two.
WTF our new kid signing is on the bench against Chelsea??? Are we really that short on bodies right now???
He’s been there the least amount of time so he’s the least likely to have been corrupted by our defensive coaching…
Hahahaha @Don…brilliant
We have defensive coaching?
Is Ozil injured?
Yes. I mean, that can be the only reason to persist with the badly out-of-form Iwobi…
He’s either injured or ‘injured’ due to a possible bid for him
Or ‘sick’
Why the fuck is Alexis on the bench? Just take him out or play him. He’s our best available player.
He’s on the bench because he’s leaving for sure. You can’t risk an injury to a player who is about to leave to another team, that’s why you don’t play them just before the transfer.
……aaaaaaaaannndd then there was that time we started Ox against Liverpool….
This is the new arsenal, what a team
So Sanchez is not playing Europa League, not in FA Cup obviously, just made the bench in Carabao Cup 1st Leg Semi, what else?
Crikey, was not expecting that at all. I am honestly left for words at the situation we are in, i can’t believe we are selling coquelin for one, defensively he is very impressive. How can we honestly inspire players to play for us, ahh come to arsenal to play with welbeck and iwobi, i genuinely would love to know if lacazette regrets joining us. Like if alexis is going then okay let him go, but don’t put him on the bench. If he is staying why the F is he not starting. I would rather see wilshere play in iwobis… Read more »
That’s a really naive back line. Let’s hope Morata’s wearing the same shooting boots he used at the Emirates last week!
Perfect opportunity for Ospina to redeem himself.
I’d love someone to explain to me how he was supposed to stop Lichaj’s first goal. Like he’s expected to defend the goal from a shooting position and man mark an opposition player at the same time?!
Not defending his overall quality but he didn’t do much wrong in that game.
I’m not normally pessimistic before a game, but comparing our line up with theirs fills me with dread tonight. Fingers crossed the lads can pull a big performance out of the hat.
Needs to be a magic hat
I know we’ve got injuries, but that’s a depressing squad to look at.
Of the first eleven, only Wilshere and Lacazette (perhaps AMN too, given his age) have been remotely close to being in form this season.
And Mustafi has pretty consistently been our best defender since he’s returned from injury.
Will anyone have learned anything from the game on Emirates last week? We will soon find out. Not very optimistic but we will score one – question is how many we will concede
Wow !! Look at that Bench. It will send shivers down the spine of any premier club. And the less said about the playing eleven the better. Hopefully Welbeck will score one more screamer, the way he usually does.
Mavropanos on the bench!? Guess he did alright in training over the past 5 days.
Oh dear I fear by the end of this game the second leg will be irrelevant.
As many contests with Bayern over the years have shown, Arsenal excel in dead rubbers. No hope?! Let’s give it all, lads!
No Arsenal game matters until Wenger leaves.
OMG
How much will Arsenal need to spend to turn the club back to top4? If Kroenke wants of course
Swiss Rambler estimated that the difference in revenues between Europa League and Champions League qualification was only £20 million. So no, Kroenke doesn’t want to
Ok but look at the bigger picture…
No Champions league. Top players don’t come.
Top players don’t come, our performances and premier league placing drops.
Equals less revenue in terms of sponsorships, merchandise etc etc
This team sheet looks light. Hopefully, our recent results against Chelsea can repeat itself
I hope to see the Arsenal of the past, the pride, the Glory and the scintillating football !! COYG
LOL!
Why Iwobi? He is not 2nd Division standard, can’t score goals, can’t make them, runs around and then gets tired.
And then, judging from his eyes, very, very sleepy.
What a nice reward to holding for having such a despicable performance against a championship side. Take it or leave it, arsene’s arsenal is a joke.
Who else do we have?!
That’s true. Impressively, Wenger isn’t quite ready to ruin Mavropanos’ confidence quite yet, even after a whole five days.
A changed man?
This an extremely weak team. Say no more. Surely Alexis would have started if he wasn’t going to go to Man City. Just my thought. Get a draw somehow today.
I’m sorry to be so negative but get ready for an embarrassment.
Aren’t we immune to embarrassment by now, though?
These days, I’m in turn amused and bored by Arsenal. Way past embarrassment.
Wenger you old dog you.
Putting Sanchez on the bench keeping us guess.
Well played, well played.
Chambers, Holding and iwobi… Not expecting much today
Having a pre-game set of tapas at Iberica on the Great Portland St beforw i cross the street to watch the game in the pub and Giroud has just walked in with his wife and kid…so he’s not watching the game…
At least it’s Wednesday. Happy hump day. COYG
Looking forward to see how VAR goes.
This looks like a team which has been sent out to not lose instead of win. But hey, this is the new era of the 6th place PL finish and crashing out of two competitions in a week!
Chelsea put out their first team and we our 2nd/3rd string because of injury etc…it’s an honourable result …
Blogs why are my posts subject to moderation? Have I abused anyone? Have I expressed pro sp#rs comments here? I was just saying that Giroud walked into the restaurant I was eating in as I was leaving to watch the game in the pub across the street…wtf is wrong with my post?
No idea!
Sell all our best back ups – Gabriel, Coquelin
Don’t sell our mediocre players- Walcott, Debuchy, Elneny
Lose our best assets – Alexis, Ozil
Don’t buy proven replacements buy young players instead.
Promote young players Holding Chambers (potentially Willock and AMN) who have yet to show delivery on promise.
Rely on injury prone players – Ramsey and Jack to anchor the midfield.
Arsenal Recipe for success.
Tell me we can’t benefit from a Mahrez.
Barely anything from the right.
We sell Coquelin (like we did Gabriel), we rely on injury prone Jack. We have mediocre Elneny. Granitalso poor.
Lets use AMN and Willock in midfield like we do Holding and Chambers.
Oh we have Ramsey as well the chap who tends to wander too high.
We don’t need anyone in midfield to come in.