Hello and how are you? Sunday the 15th of February sees the Mighty Cannon host Wigan Athletic in the next round of the FA Cup. KO at the Emirates is at 4.30pm, local time. Expected weather is cloudy with temps at 7° ( feels like 4°) and 79% of rain in the first half and 16% in the second.
So, a chance for a few changes and some musical chairs for the squad, what with the next round of the FAC, and its magic (which is code that everyone outside of planet Arsenal will be hoping we lose)and hopefully a victory that we could all do with. The last thing we need is to go to penalties! But I’m sure 22nd place League One Wigan will be aiming for that?
Missing for the Gunners are: Merino, Dowman ( good to see him back in training) and Mr. Havertz. Undoubtedly doubtful are; Saliba! and Odegaard.
Missing for Wigan are: Adeeko, Robinson, McHugh, and doubtful is James Carragher.
I checked in with the heads at statto HQ and they calculated this Arsenal have an 89.4% chance of winning and Wigan a mere 2.9%. Next up a clash with struggling Wolves at theirs and then it’s Them at the Shack. SO COYG!
Mills
This game should be about as easy as it gets. Wigan are not very good, we are at home and everyone that starts will be a good player desperate to impress. There really isn’t much more to say on the subject, should be fun.
Pedantic George.
Positively Arsenal 
a few youth players seen arriving with the squad, most notable are Ceadach O’Neill and Marli Salmon.
O’Neill would be a major surprise as he has hardly featured for the U21’s despite his 9 goals in 10 league games for the U18’s, he has 12 goals across all Academy teams this season, and he has a fair few assists too. He was taken off at half time in the U18 game yesterday.
Marli Salmon was taken off at half time in the U21 game and was expected to be in the squad today.
2 of the academy goalies are also with the squad, Khari Ranson and Tommy Setford, of the two Setford is the more likely to be sub goalie today if Raya is given the day off.
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O’Neill has played mostly as a striker this season but can play on either wing too. He is still only 17(turns 18 in April) and is a Northern Ireland U19 international, he has been called up to their U21 squad too.
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Again great set up lads.
Well although I think we should be putting out schoolboys for this game in my head I know Ed is correct and his team is probably on the money.
Putting out a young side would indeed be gambling in the wigan casino but a ratio of experience to youth of three before eight might just be excellent.
Our warm up will be taken by Mikel or M’s as we could call him today and he will take us to the top of the room.
A good performance today could have us dancing all night and the the last sound we hear is “Do I love you, indeed I do” COYG.
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Wigan’s first choice goalie is Sam Tickle, he turned down a move to Arsenal 18 months ago cos he felt playing regular for Wigan was better for his career than being no.2 or no.3 at Arsenal.
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Oleksandr Zinchenko looks to have suffered a season ending injury just 3 minutes into his debut at Ajax
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Matt Smith who was an unused sub when we last won the FA Cup plays for Wigan
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Arsenal Women’s game away to Brighton postponed late due to a waterlogged pitch.
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Kepa; White, Saliba, Mosquera, Calafiori; Norgaard, Lewis-Skelly, Eze; Madueke, Martinelli, Jesus.
subs: Setford, Hincapie, Gabriel, Salmon, Zubimendi, Rice, Saka, Trossard, Gyökeres
very close to what I predicted would be the line up
Matt Smith is a sub for Wigan today
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all games so far today have gone the way of the EPL teams
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none of the results in the WSL went our way today but if AFC women win their two games in hand they will be 2nd in the table
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Calafiori got injured in the warm up so Saka started, and O’Neill was added to the subs
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HT: Arsenal 4-0 Wigan
Madueke, Martinelli, an own goal, and Jesus with our goals
with Calafiori injury it meant MLS moving to left back and not the expected midfield role
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Gyokeres on for Saka for the second half
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Salmon and Trossard on for Saliba and Madueke
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the game has died a death
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Ben White(injured) replaced by Martin Zubimendi. Salmon goes to right-back, Norgaard centre-back
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Tommy Setford on for his Arsenal debut, Kepa off.
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FT: Arsenal 4-0 wigan
a nothing second half, well except for the injuries we picked up.
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I assume the 5th round draw will be made tomorrow evening before the monday night cup game.
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10 EPL sides so far, Brentford can make it 11, so as things stand there will be at least 5 lower league teams we could get drawn against.
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We could end up playing city six times this season in four different competitions.
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Although I enjoyed the sixteen minutes of glory today was an example of risk adverse madness.
I understand giving players who need minutes a game and those who need confidence a game but really what happened today was very strange.
From a manager who normal subs are one for one, putting on Saka for Cala seemed lunacy to me especially with Hincapie on the bench.
Being four nil up at half time and not putting Marli on was also strange. The half time score also highlighted the folly of having the bench stacked with the first team.
Zube, Rice, Saliva and Gabriel should have been tucked up warm in bed and certainly not aloud anywhere near the grass.
Mikel may well go on and win the league this season but I will always think what a weird day this was and what a wasted opportunity.
On the plus side it was a good overall performance and some players really shone.
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Norgaard was named man of the match today
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He will not start again for a while
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maybe ian we will see a midfield 3 of Norgaard, Zubimendi and Rice in some games
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I think the problem is that the magic of the cup has gone. If Brentford win and there are only five clubs outside the PL left in the cup already.
The gap between the PL teams and the rest is getting wider each year and so shocks are usually the smaller PL teams beating the bigger ones.
I know each season a team in the bottom half of the top division gets beaten because they put out a weak side to save their regular players for the league but that’s it.
The F.A. may have to consider changing the rules of the most famous cup competition in the world to keep it competitive. PL teams having to play away or if they are playing teams a division below not having those players who are regular starters playing.
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In the last twenty five years only nine clubs have won the cup.
Portsmouth, Wigan, Palace, Leicester, Liverpool, Chelsea, both the Manchester clubs and of course serial winners ARSENAL.
In the ten cup finals between 1970 and 1979 nine different clubs also one won it. Obviously the only club winning it twice was ARSENAL.
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Ed, we have seen lots of opportunities, most recently at Brentford, when we needed to wrestle back the midfield and take control of the game before we could go on and wrestle back the result. That midfield three would of been ideal but Mikel has never chosen to go down that route yet.
He well may see the value in doing that in the future and I hope he does but I can’t see it. However I do concede that in the history of this site you are way out in front in getting things right. My extensive football knowledge seems to throw me the wrong way on most occasions. Good job I’m not the manager.
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well Ian on your idea that CL teams play away in the cup, the thing is the game yesterday for Wigan was worth a lot more to them at the Emirates than it would have been in Wigan, in the FA Cup gate money is shared evenly.
Mansfield will be hoping beyond hope that they get on of the really big boys away from home in the 5th round.
Also would say that there is no good reason why a CL side if drawn against a fellow EPL side should have to play away, as it is the lower level EPL sides that send out the weakest teams in the FA Cup.
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the draw is in and its
Mansfield v Arsenal
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Wolves v Liverpool
Newcastle v Man City
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Wrexham v Chelsea
West Ham v Macclesfield or Brentford
Fulham v Southampton
Port Vale or Bristol City v Sunderland
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There could be some lower league teams in the QF
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I’ve never seen Arsenal play Mansfield before
The only player I can recall that played for both was Craig McKernon, who we signed from them in 1990, after he had been their player of the year. He was seen as a great prospect for right back but sadly a knee injury ended his professional career only a year later, with him drifting into non league.
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just seen that the only other time we have played Mansfield was in the FA Cup in 1929, when Herbert Chapman was our manager, we won 2-0
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Can’t remember much about Craig other than he had a bigger perm than Keown
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Ed, my idea wasn’t for PL sides against PL sides just those in the lower divisions especially if it two divisions below.
The F.A. could negate lost revenue from gate money by pooling the gate money and handing it out on % of performance.
A top seeded team would get less than a team who got further than they were supposed to.
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the Mansfield stadium holds less than 10,000, and so Arsenal’s ticket allocation will be less than 1,400
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Craig never played a league game for us, think we actually signed him while he was injured, but there was such interest in him that we took the risk. Fee was about £200K. I have a feeling he played in 2 games for us in total. He was said to be a very attacking right back. Always sad when injury wrecks a career. He was only something like 22 when he had to retire.
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Nigel Clough is the Mansfield manager, his Dad Brian’s last FA Cup games was against Arsenal
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Brian Clough won the European cup, The League with two different clubs and the league cup several times but he never won the F.A.cup.
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A.I.S.A., are reporting that ARSENAL, have finally listened to the ARSENAL advisory board (which they are a part of), have agreed to install an area of safe standing.
It will be in the clock end and will be ready in time for the start of the 27/28 season
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They also report that although fans groups, including the FSA, had requested PL clubs put a two year freeze on Season Ticket prices, ARSENAL have decided to increase prices by 3.9%.
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George, sent the Wolves preview over. COYG!
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Calafiori and White both fit for Wolves game. Havertz might be fit for the Spurs game and Odegaard should be fit for the Spurs game
Seemingly the Wolves game is a slight doubt as there is heavy snow forecast but it may not come till during or after the game.
Seemingly Saka has finally put pen to paper on his new 5 year deal. It was agreed a while back.
on the safe standing areas, some reports suggest that the total number will be 13,500, with half of them installed this summer in the Clock End and the rest next summer in the North Bank.
Arsenal U18’s lost 4-1 at home to spurs today, they sit 10th in the table with 5 wins, 3 draws and 6 defeats from 14 league games. Emerson Nwaneri scored his first goal for the U18’s today.
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Arsenal U14s won the Hale End Cup
The played PSG(France), Blackburn Rovers(England), RSC Anderlecht(Belgium), Avispa Fukuoka(Japan), Cliftonville(Northern Ireland), and Herta Berlin(Germany)
Arsenal finished with 16 points and a +13 goal difference
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seemingly the Arsenal U14’s didn’t concede a goal in the six games and the stand out defender for them was Jax Egbuson
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THE OLD GOLD MEETS THE GUNS!
Hello! How are you? Wednesday the 18th of January sees the Mighty Cannon take a trip up (if that’s your perspective?) to the midlands and engage in a top versus bottom clash in the PL against Wolverhampton Wanderers. KO at Molineux is at 8-00pm local time and expected weather is partly cloudy with temps at 3° (when will I see you again?) and feels like -9°. With 65% chance of (snow?) rain.
So, another big one even if it’s against the Old Gold who are stuck way down the drop-hole position of the league and 48 points away from us. However, Wolves have played well against top teams with some admirable displays and shuffled and scraped some draws against fairly decent sides. Of course, all anti- Arsenal eyes are on this, hoping that the Gunner goes skating like Bambi. But I’m sure that Arteta and Co saw what was possible against Wigan and will hopefully try to emulate the successes of the first half at least…
Missing for the Cannon be: Messrs Odegaard, Havertz and Merino. Califurious is back as is Mr. White. Nice. Not sure if the Young Max will be on the bench for this one?
Missing for Wolves are: Hwang Hee-Chan and Toti Gomes. Although Rob Edwards has said that he will rotate again after Wolves’ victory against Grimsby explaining that some of his players are pretty exhausted.
The nerds at Statto HQ were arguing the merits of coding in HTML over BASIC and finally took a break to give us at PA the winning potential percentages: Wolverhampton Wanderers, 149 years, Midlands; 9.4%. Arsenal (by far the greatest team the word has ever seen),139 years, London; 73.9%.
After this clash, it’s a stroll down the Seven Sisters road and onto the Coop for a show-down with the noisy neighbours of Hackney marshes. So COYG!
Mills
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Set up nicely Mills,
Although the media might like to tell people wolves set up with a back three in actual fact it is more often a back five with four in front of them.
So it will be the same old trying to break to break down a block and watching for counters and set plays.
The weather is going to be a shit as well and wolves are aggressive and like to foul so this is going to be a battle.
We are going to have to employ all of our ARSENAL to be confident of an ARSENAL win COYG.
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Raya, Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Hincapie, Zubimendi, Rice, Madueke, Martinelli, Saka, Gyokeres.
Subs: Arrizabalaga, White, Calafiori, Lewis-Skelly, Mosquera, Norgaard, Eze, Trossard, Jesus
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