Are Arsenal serious about winning the EFL Cup?

Arsenal moved into the quarter finals of the EFL cup on Tuesday, but are they serious about trying to win it?

The Gunners beat Reading 2-0 this week to seal a place in the last eight, and following last night’s draw for the following round, we will now get to face Southampton for a place in the semi-final of the tournament.

This remains a competition that Arsene Wenger has yet to win in his 20 years as boss, and has only made the final on two occasions, losing to Chelsea and Birmingham City respectively.

The midweek starting XI included a number of fringe and youth prospects, with the Gunners boss regularly using the League Cup as a platform to give his less experienced players a bridge between the development sides.

Jeff Reine-Adelaide, Emilio Martinez and Ashley Maitland-Niles all started on Tuesday evening, while Gedion Zelalem and Chris Willock also featured, and there is no telling how much involvement the developing players will play in the next match with the Saints.

Bookmakers make us the second-favourites to win the competition, with Liverpool in as favourite due to their favourable home draw with Leeds in the next round, but will we take it serious enough to warrant our place in the betting?

The last time we made the final of the competition, we lost 2-1 in a painful encounter to Birmingham City, although we can have little complaints about the team fielded on that occasion, with even our first-choice goalkeeper at the time featuring.

Wenger’s only other final was not so strong however, as the Frenchman fielded a number of inexperienced players against Chelsea in 2007, including Jeremy Aliadiere, Justin Hoyte and Denilson, against a full strength Blues side.

With our side currently on course to qualify from our Champions League group, as well as being joint-top of the Premier League, there is no telling just how much Wenger will be willing to invest in the competition which he has regularly overlooked previously.

Will Wenger take the competition seriously when they inevitably encounter a strong side, or will he continue to play the kids throughout the competition despite the opposition?

Pat J

Tags Arsenal League Cup

5 Comments

  1. Arsene spoke as if he intended to play Martinez and the others in the next game, but that was before he knew it would be Southampton. Who are a strong team.

  2. I would seriously take a league treble

    Premier League
    English Football League Cup
    Champions League

    But in all seriousness, Southampton represents a huge step up. We might be able to rest our first x1
    (Cech, bellerin, mustafi, koscielny Monreal Coquelin Cazorla Walcott ozil iwobi Alexis) but we will probably need to field our fittest 2nd x1 and strongest bench

    Ospina
    Jenkinson Holding Gabriel Gibbs
    Elneny Xhaka
    Chamberlain Ramsey Perez
    Giroud

    Martinez, bielik, maitland-niles, sheaf, zelalem, Adelaide, mavididi

  3. We’ve never won it under Wenger, that tells you how seriously we take it. It’s become an audition for our youth squad, and we’ll be playing a youth squad against So’ton as well. Whatever happens happens. Focus should be on EPL anyways, the trophy Arsene really needs to win. Put a competitive team in if we make it to finals, maybe semis, depending on who we are playing.

  4. I think the players should be ready for it after all this is Arsenal the young guns should claim this trophy they need it for their own development and stardom as they need to progress a head with their future

  5. beggars cannot be choosers. In the last 10 years we have just won 2 Fa xups and some community shield. Now that is not something to be proud off. Better take this seriously and act like a big club and not big pretenders.

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