Carling Cup Preview

Halloo and good morning.  This may be a tired blog this morning, I've been sleeping on a small air mattress next to my bed where Jenny's sleeping with the worst flu on earth.  I'm working hard not to get it but it seems inevitable. 

Anyway, we've got Liverpool this afternoon and it looks like nobody's airing it in the States, so we've been reduced to scrambling around trying to find a stream online, unless we have the Arsenal subscription, in which case we're fine. 

Some good news today as Nasri and Fabianski are back in town.  Fabianski will start in the sticks  in what I imagine will be a pretty strong and experienced team.  Senderos and Silvestre will surely start in the middle at the back with Gibbs likely to play on the right.  It looks like Gilbert will start at right back with Hoyte not in the squad.  Ramsey will likely start but after that it gets fuzzy.  Eduardo and Bentner will play but I'm not sure they'll start, Nasri will play but again I'm not sure he'll start.  We're missing Jack Wilshere, which is very unfortunate and it looks like Carlos Vela isn't playing either.  Hopefully Merida will play and we can all get a glimpse of what he can do. 

Whatever team we play I'm sure we'll be better than Liverpool, who'll probably play their youth team as well and as we all know, they're not exactly famous for producing great players, Gerrard being the last player worth sticks that their academy produced.  We'll see how the game unfolds but I think our boys will have a nice spark with the return of some injured players mixed with players who'll want to displace them. 

I think we always look forward to Carling Cup games because they're so exciting for us.  We get to see our future playing in knock out cup tie games and don't they always impress.  What likely makes it even more exciting now is seeing the players this competition has helped produce with Fabregas being one of the best in the world, Alex Song patrolling the midfield, Eboue having turned into a nice utility man, Diaby coming to bear some fruit, Bendtner becoming a goalscoring international, Clichy becoming one of the best wingbacks in the world, then loosing form and now getting some of it back again.  Not to mention the players who've left the club having looked excellent in this competition, Adebayor, Kolo Toure and Flamini to name a few. 

And while other clubs take this contest a bit more seriously, fielding strong teams, particularly towards the semis and finals, we confidently stride through the entire competition fielding our exciting youth.  Were we terribly serious about winning the Carling Cup we'd play our first team but as it stands we use it as a means to strengthen our perpetually competitive team to compete for the big trophies while holding onto some success in the cup itself, making us the effective masters of the Carling Cup.  Don't worry about the fact that we haven't won it in years. 

There's some news floating around but nothing too worth getting into.  Wenger talks a bit about Nasri's position and about Merida but all in all it's quiet but for the game.  Kick off is in a couple hours, I'm looking forward to it.

Highbury86