Arsenal - West Bromwich Albion, Carling Cup Preview

Ok so tomorrow is our first, and hopefully not last, chance to see the kids take the carling cup by storm. West Brom are perhaps slightly better opposition than Sheffield Utd were at this stage last season, but not nearly as good as Wigan, who we easily defeated 3-0 in the next round.

Of course, Wenger has started a tradition that a few managers have followed, in playing a mixture between firsts, reserves, and youth players in the carling cup. Regardless of the fact that no established first teamers will be playing, or even in the squad, we will still be a bit weaker than we wanted to be. Fran Merida and Gavin Hoyte have been called up to the infinitely pointless Euro U20s tournament. Henri Lansbury is on loan at Watford, Jay Emmanuel Thomas at Blackpool and Jay Simpson at QPR.

My predicted starting XI therefore is as follows:

Szczesny

Gilbert Senderos Silvestre Gibbs

Coquelin

Randall Ramsey

Wilshere Watt Barazite

or if it's 4-4-2:

Szczesny

Gilbert Senderos Silvestre Gibbs

Wilshere Randall Ramsey Traore

Watt Barazite

It is difficult to see where Traore will fit in if Wenger will play the talented duo of Wilshere and Barazite as well as one of his new favourites Sanchez Watt. On the bench there will be a few of Kyle Bartley, Francis Coquelin/Armand Traore, Oguzhan Ozyakup, Luke Freeman, Ignasi Miquel, Emmanuel Frimpong, Rhys Murphy, Connor Henderson, perhaps even extreme youngsters Benik Afobe and Chuks Aneke...who knows.

Whatever the teams, it'll be an interesting watch, apart from whenever the ball goes near the left side of the central defence, or to Randall. I hope Silvestre and Randall both play well of course, but past performances indicate they probably won't.

Right that's all for now. I'll be back on Wednesday me thinks.
'Til then Gooners.