Arsenal v Sunderland (League cup)

You could be right Strolls , there’s a meeting this afternoon about fixtures so who knows .

We got very fortunate with this draw. We should be able to rotate nearly completely and still beat them, especially at home.

It will be interesting to see how other clubs handle this, given the news that the PL will not be taking any kind of break. Chelsea and Liverpool are both running on fumes and in danger of seeing their title hopes slip away if they perform poorly in the upcoming league fixtures. I could see them both fielding U21 sides. Klopp likes to do that anyway in domestic cups. Meanwhile, Brentford and Leicester each won’t have played for about 10 days. I don’t know what their player availability will be but I think both would see this as an opportunity to win something or go deep in a cup so I doubt either club will blow it off.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see the semis as:

Arsenal
Leicester
Brentford
West Ham or Spurs

Big chance for us to win this competition if that happens.

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Going for another 4 goal thriller. Don’t care if we’re punching down, can only beat those in front of you.

4-0 Arsenal :muscle:t4:

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Chelsea really going to lose from Brentford? I don’t see it.

Depends what kind of team they field. If Tuchel puts a strong team out then they’ll win but they have a lot of players out and some of the guys who have been playing are clearly really jaded. He was complaining after the match yesterday about needing to play guys who aren’t fit and how its going to lead to more injuries. Meanwhile they are staring at a very tough festive period fixture list (@Villa, Brighton, Liverpool) and they can’t afford to drop many more points or they are going to be out of the title race completely.

You think Brentford go full strength. I can’t see that.
They have to target prem survival and are far from secure. Couple of injuries and they could freefall for me.

Doesn’t make sense for Chelsea to give up this cup, even if it’s lower priority.

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Chelsea very rarely do give up cups tbh. City the same nowadays.

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City being knocked out is probably what provides this cup some excitement, they won it 4 times in a row or something?

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Consideration given now for the semi finals going back to one leg.

I was thinking this the other day.

It, unfortunately, means we can’t beat Spurs twice

Glad my Wednesday morning is taken care of watching us send these northerners packing, didn’t their cocky manager say he wants to leave big ties like Chelsea or Liverpool to the Semi Finals ?

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I hope Carlie Patino plays a part.

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I keep forgetting we have a game tonight lol.

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Will we see Pepe?

Hoping to see Balogun.

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PATINO

I think it might have been that they were hoping to get one of the big teams in this round. Either way, it was definitely a cheeky lil comment about us not being one of the proper big clubs lol

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Was a great comment tbh not extra large Domino’s good but it certainly rattled a few delicate souls on Reddit which cracked me up

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You never know with Mikel. You would expect him to do a full rotation but I wouldn’t be surprised if he plays a couple of starters to keep the side stable.

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I’d go along with Arseblog’s prediction:

Leno, Cedric, Chambers, Holding, Tavares, Elneny, Maitland-Niles, Smith Rowe, Pepe, Nketiah, Balogun.

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