Both Arsene Wenger and Antonio Conte made nine changes to their sides for the FA Cup at the weekend, but it would appear that Chelsea’s boss is still intending to make changes for the Caraboa Cup tie against Arsenal tonight. ‘In every game we try to make a strong team, whether you play in the league, the FA Cup or the Carabao Cup,’ he said on the official Chelsea website.
‘When you play every three days, it’s important to make rotations but at the same time, your team must be very strong. Otherwise, you risk dropping in this trophy. It’s a very important game for us, a semi-final and the chance to win a trophy. We deserve to be here and it will be a tough game against Arsenal.
‘From the start of the season we have tried to find a good balance, to give the right opportunity and chances to everyone. I think every one of my players deserves the chance to play.
‘It is important for us. We played in the Carabao Cup with young players but at the same time, it was a strong team. Our run in this competition hasn’t been easy. In the fourth round we played, Everton, the fifth round was against Bournemouth and now in the semi-final we play Arsenal.
‘But we must be very happy because we have reached the semi-final. We want to try to do our best, to reach the final.’
Arsenal and Chelsea have played two exciting draws in the League already, with our 2-2 at the Emirates just two weeks ago, and our 0-0 draw at the Bridge earlier in the season earned us our first point in our last 5 visits, although the Blues haven’t beaten us in our last five competitive meeting. So what does Conte think of this new contest? ‘I think the game against Arsenal was a good game,’ he said. ‘I think our performance that day was very good but we know very well which are the points of strength of this Arsenal team.
‘We know where they like to win points from. I think we try to study the game in the right way and we want to play another good game, to try to win the game.
‘But we must pay great attention because we are playing a good team in Arsenal, one of the top six teams in England.’
Whatever teams we see on the pitch, I am sure that both of them will be fighting hard to take an advantage for the second leg, although Wenger would probably be happy with another 0-0 draw. Arsenal have scraped through by one goal against Doncaster, Norwich and West Ham to get this far, so can we do it again against Chelsea over the two legs?
Admin
Conte can rotate, and still field a strong line up.
We can’t rotate and field a strong line up.
Wenger thinks this squad is good enough, it’s not.
Wenger thinks he can outmanage other Premier League managers, he cannot.
He’s a midtable manager.
Very true.Wenger cannot out manage other managers in EPL.He demonstrated that in the FA cup by fielding a weaker team as compared to other managers and ended up being thrown out.
Well ..if you’re gonna use the FA cup as a barometer??
I think you set people up for that one on purpose.
Chelsea still have champion and fa cup, and aiming for big 3 premier.
Conte seem dont care about league cup, he will give it to us. And if we still lose it, well that s**t…..
Right, Conte does not seem to care about the League Cup. I don’t think Arsenal is excited about it either…
Even disinterested, unmotivated and unprepared Conte’s Chelsea will be more than tough for our (inadept, tactically non-existent) manager.
A repeat of earlier result would be ideal, either the home or away one though scoring draw best. COYG!!!!!
These reports about Wennger stepping down and hook eye coming in. During summer I thought this could be Arsene’s last season because it’s allot of abuse the last few seasons and he could have a good pick of national job or whatever. But if we’re still selling players after the ones we lost during summer, Coq and Elneny if true, Walcott, well that to me suggests Arsene will be manager next season. If he intended passing torch on then he wouldn’t be selling players in Jan in my opinion.
We ALL know that they are true, the only person who thought that Sanchez would stay was Wenger.
On one hand I hate the little chlean for being sooo manipulative but on the other I can really blame him for walking out.
Club is a joke and Wenger i the chief clown now.
I notice that the press have all gone quiet about Lemr being an Arsenal Target and you can only asume that is because he NEVER EVER WAS.
Five months ago we were supposedly all over him like beans on toast NOW he is of no interest??? well then you can deduce from that that Lemar was never of interest and it was all smoke and mirrors and stories to mislead the fans.