Arsenal will face Bolton Wanderers in the Carabao Cup third round with the Trotters visiting Emirates Stadium in the week commencing 23 September.
Park Chu-Young was the hero the last time the Gunners faced Bolton in the League Cup back in 2011.
The South Korea international curled home a lovely effort to settle the tie 2-1 after Fabrice Muamba and Andrei Arshavin had traded goals.
The 2011/12 season was also Bolton’s last in the Premier League – we beat them at home and drew away – and we’ve not faced them since.
Due to fixture congestion resulting from the expansion of the Champions League and Europa League, it was decided that teams playing in Europe’s top two competitions would not be drawn against each other in the third round. It meant we avoided being paired against Manchester City, Liverpool, Aston Villa, Manchester United and Sp*rs.
Despite a number of near-misses, Arsenal haven’t won the League Cup since 1993. We’re overdue a win in the competition but with priorities lying elsewhere, we’d be surprised if Mikel Arteta went hell for leather in it.
Nice draw.
Let’s take this competition seriously this season.
Think that’s going to be the mindset of Mikel and the boys. I have a feeling they are desperate to win something, anything or more, this time around. Now that we have enviable depth, we will see some proper team line ups in these Cup games, much like Guardiola is known to do.
The Premier League and Champions league are our main targets. I genuinely can’t see Arteta prioritising this unwanted cup.
Not saying he is going to priortise this cup. But we will take it more seriously than previous years, imo.
What makes you a winner is that you want to win everything. Winning mentality is about greed. Winning every Carabao games makes you more likely to win the league and perhaps the CL. It used to be that whenever we fans think that we’re out of Carabao and can concentrate on FA Cup and the league, the following week, we get eliminated from the FA Cup and two weeks later top four out of reach.
Yeah, I think comparisons to City are always flawed. No other club team in the world can rotate players in *every* position and still have 10 outfield players who could probably be regular starters anywhere–I mean they are the same quality as starters for Madrid, for Bayern, for Arsenal and Liverpool. Guardiola plays eight of them in the League Cup, plus two youngsters (with De Bruyne, Halland, and Rodri on the bench). We can’t do that.
Why? It’s a cup that should have been scrapped years ago. Nobody takes it ver seriously. However it gives us a chance to try out some of the younger players.
Well Citeh apparently does take it seriously 🤪
Absolutely it builds the winning mentality a team needs. I went Cardiff for the final in mourinho first season with Chelsea. Wenger had two 17 year olds an 18 year and a 19 year old in midfield. Chelsea who had not won a trophy for years had makele lampard, drogba terry shevchenco essien carvalho diarra ballack and bridge. Our average stating age was 21. Chelsea won and went on to win the league the following year. Mourinho went for it instilled the winners mentality and was hugely successful. That particularly Wenger squad never won a trophy. Go figure.
I think you might be misremembering the years. When we lost this final it was 2007 and Chelsea had just won back to back league titles. But the principle is right – winning mentality. That was a final we could have won with our first choice team starting.
Thanks, I just made a similar comment. Michael Jordan was brutal when he plays with his kids at home. No competition is taken lightly in his world.
Based on this logic and their empty trophy cabinet, does this mean S#*rs don’t take anything seriously then? Or is my previous assumption that they’re just shite still the most valid reasoning?
It’s the only time he get to rest the first team players. If they get knocked out then they get that two week break to Dubai in January. Which I think they really need, not this cup run.
I’m with you on this one fats; there are obviously bigger ambitions, but the last two seasons have shown us that it hurts to finish with “nothing” to show for our efforts. I think the players and the fans would enjoy their day out and celebrating together – so let’s ignore what trophy it is and just go for the win
Could we get an even easier draw?
It depends whether or not the rumours about Kevin Nolan and Ivan Campo coming out of retirement are true.
Kevin Cyrill Davies and Samuel Allardyce are watching, possibly punditing, reminiscing about how they out-tackticked Arsenal that time in 2009
Mixed feelings about Bolton – they were always a bit of a bogey team for us, and they gave us Bruce Rioch – but Bruce Rioch gave us Dennis Bergkamp so
They were the Stoke before Stoke, flying the flag for the *proper* English game, all bellows and elbows. Such a shame that didn’t work out for them….
Time to win something Mikel !
He’s already won something. And if anyone thinks he isn’t a) trying to win more and b) the best chance we have of winning by a truly insane distance, they haven’t been paying attention.
Wow! Park Chu-Young actually played a game and scored a goal for Arsenal.
I thought he was a myth… rather than a legend!
Ironically with the height of our team and our set piece prowess.
Hopefully MLS, Nwaneri, Heaven etc will get a run out in this tie.
If we can get past Bolton there’s every chance we get Barrow or Coventry in round 4.
Absolutely, they’re both nailed on winners in this round.
They’ll probably be reserved for the 115’ers
This competition needs a shake-up.
– Minimum 8 u23s in the starting line-up?
– Minimum 8 home grown?
– Drop any team that hasn’t qualified for Europe?
I just don’t care about it in it’s current guise and I don’t think that’s just me.
Or better still, delete the whole competition? The North American sports mentality of quantity over quality thing is getting absurd in football. This expanded world club challenge in the years between Euros/WC, expanded world cup, expanded Euros, expanded champions league, adding UEFA conference league. I actually like that when there isn’t footie every fucking day. I’ve basically stopped watching international football just to get a break from it and because FIFA is corrupt AF and basically just supported human trafficking to host their last world cup. It gets harder and harder every year to justify why we follow this sport… Read more »
New Keeper
Timber – Tomiyasu – Califiori – Lewis-Skelly
Nelson – Partey – Jorginho – Oulad M’had
Martinelli – Jesus
Crush ’em
MLS was good in preseason at LB but I really want to see what he can do in midfield.
I think we have ability to take every cup this season l know that we can take that carabao
For the first tine in a couple of years we draw a much weaker opponent at home, so we can swap out players and still expect to win.
Hopefully Arteta takes full advantage to give some of the younger players a run out.