Arsenal Corner

Be honest how many times did you scream at the TV to sub Saka?

The line-up 

It’s near impossible to predict Arsenal’s line these days. Especially for an EFL cup game. Part of what I love about this Arsenal squad is you can see the team sheet and still have no idea who’s playing where. Is Merino upfront or in midfield? Is Eze on the left or central? No idea.

That said, this was a line up that made a lot of sense on paper. Perhaps stronger than expected, but with Arsenal’s depth, this is a competition they can target this year.

Rotation for players like Timber, Gabriel and Calafiori meant White, Mosquera and Lewis-Skelly came in. Also a chance to get some match fitness into Saliba’s legs after coming back from injury. 

In midfield, Zubimendi and Rice needed a rest, Norgaard and Nwaneri needed a game. 

Up-front was trickier. Before the match I oscillated between feeling Saka has absolutely no business being near the pitch and it might be good to build up his fitness in an ‘easy’ game. 1 kick to the ankle and a couple strange boos later and my mind was made up. Seriously, what beef do Port Vale fans have with Saka? 

In my preview I predicted 9 of the 11 starting. Gabriel over Saliba & Trossard over Eze. Anymore than 3 is a win these days.

The match

The match itself was…..strange? Part of the pre-match build up focused on handbrakes, and this match won’t change that narrative. 

I wanted to write that the good thing about squad depth is players will come in fired up and looking to impress which wasn’t really the case. 

We started brightly enough. Arsenal had all the possesion, Port Vale were ready to get dug in and there was a sense we were looking at a fun, high scoring, day out. Eze scored his first goal for the club after a beautiful, probably intentional, dummy from Lewis-Skelly. 

Really we should have shaken hands and gone home there. Arsenal found the handbrake, Port Vale decided to sit back less than Man City, and grew into the game – they ended the game with more touches in our box than Pep’s team.

Despite that, they never really looked threatening. Arsenal went into cruise control (a lot of car puns flying driving around). All in all it was boring but comfortable. 

Outside of a beautiful Dowman pass around the corner to Gyokores and a really well taken goal from Trossard there’s not much else not note. Nonetheless I’ll give it a go: 

Some other things to note: 

Saka: Fingers crossed he’s fine for the weekend. The plan was always to take him off around the 60 minute mark, the plan would not have been for him to limp off.

This highlights the 1-in 1-out problem we have right now. Saka was out there because of Madueke’s injury. Who arguably is only now injured because of covering whilst Saka was injured. It’s a nasty rut to get out of whilst playing 3 games a week no matter how deep the squad is.

Short corners: Yes, they were short and woeful. I saw some comments around it. I’m assuming we’re just trying out some new routines and this was the perfect game in which to try them. 

Finishers: We’re stuck in a loop. Martinelli & Trossard come off the bench, play well enough to earn themselves a start, and then botch the opportunity.

Martinelli was a hero at the weekend. Pretty invisible starting today. Trossard was poor against Man City then scores today.

Is it time to just accept they aren’t good enough to start games, but they can impact them from the bench and that’s perfectly fine? 

What else can we take away? Honestly, absolutely nothing. It was a game of football, Arsenal won, that’s all that matters. We’ll take the 3 points Onto Brighton in the 4th round.