With the present lack of form I believe this may be less anticipated than your average League Cup. We still have to compete even if Wenger doesnt want to. So who does he start? I believe he may give Pires a 90 minute run out to help him establish game fitness. Jeffers and Kanu up front, Taylor in goal, Luhzny, Stepanovs, GVB, Toure, but I cant think of who else may get to play. Even if you dont care and you believe the League Cup is only for clubs like Spurs who have no real chance to win a real trophy, please respond. It will help boost your post count! Taylor Luhzny ? Stepanovs ? Toure GVB Pires ? Kanu Jeffers
To add to Worthington Cup mania....... Mancity loses to Wigan 1-0 Birmingham lose to Preston 2-0 Manutd require an 80 min Beckham PK to get past Leicester City.
45 minutes to game time and the ambivalence deepens. No PBP on this one Im guessin'. Tavlardis is probably going to play and Id forgotten about him. Rayzor? Does he even play for us anymore?
Rayzor is out with the world's longest-running hamstring injury, apparently. Aside from a win, naturally, my wish list is pretty simple for this match: a solid 90 minutes from Jeffers and no fresh injuries.
line-up No real surprises in the line-up. The way it's listed, it looks like GVB is playing wide and Kolo in the middle, but that seems flip-flopped. My guess is Pires starting in the middle again. 13 Stuart Taylor 22 Oleg Luzhny 26 Igors Stepanovs 49 Sebastian Svard 27 Stathis Tavlaridis 21 Jermaine Pennant 7 Robert Pires 28 Kolo Toure 16 Giovanni van Bronckhorst 9 Francis Jeffers 25 Nwankwo Kanu Substitutes 24 Rami Shaaban 29 Moritz Volz 45 Steven Sidwell 47 Jerome Thomas 40 Ryan Garry
Two good goals for us were cancelled out by 3 defensive errors. All goals conceded were headers. The first one from a corner kick flicked on "a la Steve Bould and Tony Adams". They had an I/D chance before scoring with this one. Svaard looked good in midfield. Had most of the game by the final fifteen minutes were "thrown away". "Tav" played too. For some of these youngsters getting the "chance of their lives", I would have expected a little more effort. How long, if ever again, this season will they get the chance to shine. Progressing in the competition would probably have guaranteed it. A good insight for Wenger as to the future, but with him stating he will "not buy" when the transfer window re-opens in January 2003, they I wouldn't be too happy with what was on display tonight as "back up".
The reason I titled the thread "Worthless Cup match one" is because I anticipated more than one match. Didnt think our scrubs would go down to a Reyna-less Sunderland.