Monday 9 January 2023 Kassam Stadium USA “TV”: ESPN+ 3pm ET OK, ready for some Monday Night Football?? In a quaint 12,500 seater? Maybe we’ll get Martin Tyler at least. We better see a full B-team dammit, with at least 8-9 players rotated from Newcastle. One of those is rumored to be ESR... bring that on! While crossing fingers and toes. If we lose so be it! We last played them 20 years ago this week in the same 3R. Hopefully a good omen, since we won that day 2-0, with GOD scoring his 100th for the club, and then of course we went on to win the whole thing in May. Our XI that day included galacticos named Oleg, Gio, Frannie plus some stranger called Seb (Svard). Here’s the only old clip I found, and it’s a funky, Oxford-centric report, but still nice to reflect on those times of supremacy. Another omen perhaps?
I assume Turner in goal, Tierney at LB, Holding at CB. Tomiyasu at RB and either Gabriel or Saliba playing CB. Could also see Cedric at RB and Tomi at CB, but that seems less likely. Midfield could be Elneny, Sambi and Vieira, unless Vieira starts on the wing, in which case maybe we see Xhaka. Front line is really tricky. Eddie has to start, right? Maybe Martinelli gets a chance to play centrally? Is ESR healthy enough to start or does he need to come off the bench? Is Nelson still out injured? Good chance Marquinos starts.
City in 4R… ugh. But it might’ve just made my newly minted plan to go see Arsenal the first week of March a little clearer. I just snagged a ticket to Bournemouth on Mar.4 and was thinking of trying to add the Mar.1 FAC5R ticket as well. But now that may have just gotten quite a bit less likely? Unless of course we somehow rise up and dominate Citeh in the 2-3 times we’ll go up against them! Why the fvck not, right?!
On this day in 2012: Thierry Henry came off the bench, his first Arsenal appearance in 5 years, to score the winner in a 1-0 win over Leeds in the FA Cup third round.“He may be cast in bronze, but he's still capable of producing truly golden moments.” 👑 pic.twitter.com/h7UXJmQUFX— afcstuff (@afcstuff) January 9, 2023
Our @EmiratesFACup starting XI 🤍Let’s do this, Gunners 👊 pic.twitter.com/BBBHfPXVTq— Arsenal (@Arsenal) January 9, 2023 Unconscionable front three.
Agreed, but then again, it's not like we have a lot of options to rotate the front line right now. My hope and expectation is that ESR and Marquinos come on at HT after the match is mostly wrapped up, or shortly after the restart. Would be nice if Butler-Oyedeji come on too and everyone else rested.
So by my count he made 7 rotations for today's XI. The MF three swap is more along the lines that many of us were hoping for. But obviously up front he has less options. But he coulda played Viera as a right forward no? Not happy to see Saka start.
I'd be pretty overjoyed if Arsenal's away strip looked like Oxford's home strip tonight. In fact, for a split second, when I first pulled up the match I thought we were them! Nah, we're wearing that all-white thing again... where the numbers are invisible. Not really a fan of that.
Oxford are pressuring heavily whenever/wherever we have the ball and have been pretty organized in defense so far. I don't expect they can keep this up for 90 mins, but we'll see. The biggest annoyances have been with the ref's assistant on our right flank, he flagged Saka for a foul in the box when the defender clearly dived (with no contact) to stop a good scoring chance, and he called a clear kick by Tomi off the defender for a corner that was awarded a goal kick instead.
The drop-off from the first-choice midfield to this one is staggering. We really missed out by letting Bruno Guimaraes go to Newcastle.
Neny w/ a shot - clearly hits the Oxford defender's arm in the box as he's sliding to block it - no call. and since there's no VAR, it's not reviewed. Not sure which is worse: having VAR or no VAR. Either way we seem to get screwed.
No VAR is miles worse, but that wasn't a penalty anyway. The Oxford player's arm was going down to support him, which isn't a foul these days.
Bold strategy from Arteta to start with 7 players today and leave the midfield and striker positions open. Might consider adding those players to the lineup in the second half.
Really not likin this game. Halftime and no shots on goal. We’re playing/risking more A-team players than I’d like. They’re kicking us and whacking our heads during aerial challenges.
Clear lack of any kind of minutes in competitive action from our midfield 3. Between the world cup and Arteta refusing to make subs it's no real surprise.
Same midfield 3 as our plodding 1-0 win against Zurich and the 3-1 League Cup shellacking we took at Brighton. None of the 3 players are good enough individually, and they're a terrible trio when played together.