The Arsenal ‘rotated’ get a chance tonight at Ipswich

Under normal circumstances, I’d be saying things like “I quite like these types of games tonight”. Arsenal in the EFL Cup, or League Cup as I prefer to call it, is an opportunity to usually rotate a few players, to take the stresses away from the Premier League, and last season it certainly offered that bit of respite. If you get knocked out, it’s no biggie, because there are other fish to fry.

But our performances in the Premier League so far, coupled with the fact that we’re already Champions and so the stress and pressure has subsided somewhat, means that I kind of don’t feel the same about this game as I probably would have done last season. There’s also probably an element of it being still so early in the season that the usual Premier League worries aren’t there.

So tonight’s game away to Ipswich at Portman Road feels like a strange one, because I still have my usual EFL vibes, but I’m also looking at Brighton and getting excited to see whether we can make it five out of five to kick our season off.

As for the team, well, I suspect there absolutely has to be rotation tonight, and I’d be stunned if Arteta didn’t ring the changes. It’s not a 100% certainty though; there have been times in the FA Cup earlier rounds, or this competition, that Arteta has gone stronger on his XI than we’d have liked. But the days in which you see a bunch of kids out there just don’t exist anymore. Let’s look at an alternate XI that Arteta could put out tonight, whose minutes have been limited:

Kepa

Salmon – Mosquera (if fit) – Gabriel – Hincapié

Zubimendi

Merino – Eze

Dowman – Gyokeres – Madueke

And if he goes for that, I’d be more than happy. In fact, I’d be even happier if Big Gabi wasn’t in contention in this team, but I suspect you’d have to move Hincapie into the centre and then find a left back from the youth team. I suspect Arteta doesn’t do that if Salmon plays, which means we’ll more than likely see at least one of our main starters get on the pitch.

Of course, that side still doesn’t include Bruno, so he could put Zubi in at right back, Salmon in central defence with Gabriel, then have Bruno occupy the deep-lying positions. It’s not ideal; Zubi probably won’t thank Arteta for it, but given some of the potential injuries to the team in the shape of Mosquera, it probably needs to be done.

We do need Mosquera back for these kinds of games, though. With Konsa’s form being such that he is going to find game time perhaps a wee bit limited, these are the kinds of games he needs to get to ensure he has minutes in the tank. My hope is that the injury he sustained against Villa was just a tweak, and the club felt a week or two’s rest would be enough. As of yesterday, it’s two weeks, and we haven’t had a press conference from Arteta on tonight’s game, so we’re not sure on team news, but he didn’t seem that fussed about it after the Villa game, so I have hopes that we’ll see him tonight. And if that happens, it means the above line-up becomes feasible, plus you can keep Bruno in reserve for the visit to Brighton on Saturday afternoon.

As for Ipswich, well, it’s tough to really do any kind of analysis on them, in the same way that it’s tough for them to do any analysis on us, because the Arsenal team tonight is going to be so different. I suspect the same can be said for Ipswich tonight, although we don’t fully know if Gary O’Neill will view this as a distraction his team doesn’t need. He’ll never say that, of course, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn before kick-off that he’s either rotated his team fully, or he’s gone full strength to see if he can lay down a bit of a marker. Against Leicester in the last round he rotated, but Leicester are in a spot of bother and a league lower than Ipswich now, so that was hardly surprising. We’re a different kettle of fish entirely. He’s a sensible bloke; they have Everton away on Saturday, and I don’t think their squad is that deep that they can fully handle a midweek-weekend fixture congestion, even if the season is still young and the players are relatively fresh. On the other hand, Ipswich picked up that win against Sunderland on the first match week; they beat Palace away at the weekend, so they’ve already picked up six points and are doing pretty well at this early stage of the season, so perhaps he’ll feel like having a go at The Arsenal on their own turf is something worth doing.

See what I mean? I am even flip-flopping myself on the line-ups and the approach from them; it’s really hard to properly work out what sort of game we’re going to get. We do know that O’Neill is a pretty decent boss; he likes to be compact and organised out of possession, whilst pushing his wide forwards up to press when we have the ball at the back. The hope is that our ability to play out of the press can get us out of trouble if that happens tonight, and also catch Ipswich out if they press bodies forward, but without the distribution of Raya at the back, it might not feel as simple as it would if we had him in between the sticks.

If we progress this evening, I don’t think we’ll find out our opponents until tomorrow evening, but the job needs to be done, and Arteta needs to make sure that those players who do play demonstrate to him that they are ready to step up if called upon through injury and suspension. So hopefully we get a good performance from those squad players this evening.

Back tomorrow with a match review.