Apparently, no side has scored fewer goals on the way to a League Cup final than Arsenal and their tally of six in this season’s competition.
It’s fair to say, there’s been a real dearth of swashbuckling attacking play in the victories over Doncaster, Norwich, West Ham and Chelsea, however, despite our struggles in front of goal we still have a chance to break Arsene Wenger’s duck in the competition when we face Manchester City on Sunday.
“We have been certainly economic, yes, because we faced some good teams,” said Wenger ahead of the trip to Wembley.
“We played against good sides, if you look well at our parkour it was not an easy one. We had to knock West Ham out.
“I believe it doesn’t matter too much how you got to the final, once you get there you want to win it.”
Quite why West Ham stood out as a particularly tough challenge when we also beat Chelsea is odd. Perhaps something of a brain freeze on the part of the boss. It was very cold last night.
Asked which of the challenges represented the stiffest for his players, Wenger reflected on the extra-time win over Norwich in October.
“Norwich, extra-time. We were 1-0 down and certainly that’s a moment where we were most wobbling. We equalised very close to the end.”
Remarkably, Eddie Nketiah’s brace that night makes him our top scorer in the competition. He’s ahead of Granit Xhaka, Danny Welbeck, the departed Theo Walcott and a corking own goal by Chelsea’s Antonio Rudiger.
While goals have been a problem in the Carabao Cup, defending has been an issue in pretty much every other competition.
On Sunday, we face Sergio Aguero, a player who has 29 goals in 20 games to his name this season.
“By being well organised as a team,” was Wenger’s response when quizzed on how Arsenal can stop the in-form Argentine. “You want also a great performance from your defenders, individual performances as well. The advantage is that we know him, maybe as well to stop the providers to feed him.”
Economic means not spending much.
Makes a lot of sense given our teams and philosophy.
Sadly, we have bought so poorly in the last 3/4 years that our philosophy can’t really be seen as economic any more….
Poor 3-4 years when there are 3 more trophies won , another final this week ? Name us other teams in the league which have a similar record …I do not think that this qualifies as poor .
‘Bought so poorly’. If you’re going to argue at least argue with the point being made.
Economic; adjective
1. pertaining to the production, distribution, and use of income, wealth, and commodities.
2. of or relating to the science of economics.
3. pertaining to an economy, or system of organization or operation, especially of the process of production
First 3 from dictionary.com
(And no, Kwame, you’re so far off base you are beyond Pluto.)
I’m Pedant Prime.
??
Economical then…..cos we are certainly no longer this.
.’avoiding waste or extravagance; thrifty:’
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/economic see number 7, economic = economical.
Yeah we’ve only broken our transfer record 3 times in the last four years and spent nearly £100 on 2 strikers in the last 12 months.
Missing the point Drew. I didn’t suggest we hadn’t spent money. My problem is we have spent it badly.
Comment est votre Francais? Ou Japonais? Va chier.
You have the ability to throw out childish insults in multiple languages? Bravo monsieur.
To be fair, I only insulted him in one.
True. I take it back then?
I love Wenger. Already playing mind games for our next clash against Chelski by ‘forgetting’ them in this interview.
“I love Wenger” , I don’t think any one bothered to continue read your comment after that sentence..even if they did they won’t take you seriously
Oh shit! This means he’s going to try and be defensive. Something which rarely works for him, especially with our current personnel.
But on the other hand we ‘turn up’ at finals. Wear two pairs of underpants everyone!
In recent years, every Arsenal match is a two-drawer game. But good advice, sir.
And, to be fair, the FA cup semi final against City a couple years ago; and final against Chels – were both defensive (almost) masterclasses by Arsenal. So, AW has – or had it – in em. But with this lot; hard to say. We’ll see.
Doncaster, Norwich, westham, good teams, do me a favour wenger
Well Ostersunds are also a “Very Strong team” according to Le Boss. This, despite the fact that they won less than HALF of their domestic league games last season finishing 5th and a whopping 14pts behind the mighty Madrid sorry Malmo.
The only thing ‘very strong’ about Ostersunds is their arctic wind blasts.
It’s been years since Arsenal played proper footballing parkour. A return to that will see us claim a first League Cup under Wenger.
I read that parkour sentence in the article about 4 times to make sure it was real.
whatt da fuk is “parkour”
In French the original word means way, route, or course. The sport (originally developed as a military/ martial training) adapted this into “way of moving quickly and efficiently across or through the landscape”.
Captain Bullshit strikes again.
“By being well organised as a team,”
Yes Arsene when was the last time you actually drilled and coached a defensively organised team…
Chambers seems to be going backwards, Holding still not quite cutting it, Kos losing pace and ageing fast, Mustafi always looks to have a mistake in him.
Based on last nights performance we’re going to get smashed.
Pretty sure they were well drilled against Chelsea.
Wenger is so irrelevant these days
Hahahaha.. Good luck stopping Aguero. We couldn’t be arsed to stop effing Ostersunds last night. Truth of the matter is this team can’t just withstand any test anymore under Arsene. They will fail each time. Last loss to spurs opened my eyes. Till he leaves, admit it or not, only one direction this club is going and it’s not North. Dire.
You mean a 2nd string defense (exception of Bellerin) couldn’t stop Ostersunds on 1 goal and then we bollox and own goal. El Neny, AMN, Holding, Chambers, and Ospina will NOT be starting Sunday. Why all the doom and gloom on this site?…its getting to be like fucking le grove in here – that shit soaked, house of bilge.
Cheer up, lad.
Ospina will be, but yeah, the rest won’t- maybe Elneny sitting deep. It’ll be a good thing to have a rested 3/4 of a back line, not that it makes me feel safe and sound.
Ah, lurching from defeat to victory with the grace of a banjaxed iceskating carthorse. Fuck knows what kind of a performance we’ll dredge up on Sunday.
All I know is with the squad we have, we should be able to CONSISTANTLY give a better account of ourselves than we do.
We are a very economic business, and right now the product is a steamy heap of garbage. Can’t wait for AW to leave. It’s mind numbingly old, and a total bore to watch. At least the football used to be entertaining. Now we concede goals for fun, and can’t create chances. Ugh.
I must have missed our parkour showdown with West Ham.
Our Parkour game has taken a huge hit since Francis ‘Starman’ Coquelin and Matthieu ‘Headtackle’ Flamini moved to warmer climes.
The French did develop the art after all.
”by being well organised as a team” well, then, we can safely say we’ll let him score two at least.
‘We had to knock west ham out’ lol fuck chelsea
As I said before he’s basically gonna leave auba isolated since the whole team gonna defend.. This rarely works.. We are only going to attack if we concede a goal , similar to the spu*s game..
What I’m trying to say is Wenger is stupid
You might say he is stubborn, set in his ways or even past his use by date in the modern coaching context, but definitely not stupid…….you don’t achieve all he has in his life by being stupid. However, i get the point and i agree, we all want him gone now, but your choice of word, i feel is disrespectful
I get that he’s a respectful man, gave a lot for the club and has many achievements at the club.. But 10 + years of frustration & transforming the club into a football laughing stock makes even the most patient, understanding & forgiving person (not that I claim I am) disrespectful toward him..& I’m not gonna lie.. I really hate this man not for anything but my love for the club and I’m not sorry for that..But I’m sorry that I’m vocal about it cause it offend some people or something.. Anyway although that I won’t act like you toward… Read more »
though Arsenal usually turns up when every body rates them down, hope i get another pleasant surprise
It’s all bogus talk by the manager until the game starts. He can drill the players with instructions and intense preparation sessions and we may end up losing the game. Or he can send everyone on a trip to Disneyland with their families, and we may end up winning the game.
My predictions are oink oink buffalo
The only chance Arsenal have is if City don’t turn up. Unfortunately, they lost to Wigan, so you can bet Guardiola will have them extra motivated and worked on the few weaknesses they do have.
The journalist asked if “Arsenal had been economic” and Arsene responded. Now the world is commenting on Arsene’s “economic” quote…internet rubbish! 🙁