While the Arsenal side in action this week in the Carabao Cup was full of fringe players and up and coming young Gunners from the academy, with Arsene Wenger clearly seeing the Premier League game against Swansea City this weekend as much more important, the Man City team selected by Pep Guardiola included regular first tem starters like Sterling and Aguero.
So it was quite a surprise to see them fail to score against the Championship side Wolves, who took the Premier League leaders to a penalty shoot out. It would have been great news for Arsenal and a big boost to our hopes of lifting the league cup had the midlands team actually knocked them out but the Man City keeper Claudio Bravo was the hero and helped them to see off the visitors.
However, I do think that this unexpected scoreline should be takem as a positive by the Arsenal fans as we have to go to the Etihad ourselves next weekend and until this week they were looking ominously good and scoring lots of goals. Will Arsene Wenger study this cup game and see just how Wolves managed to keep a clean sheet against Guardiola’s attack?
Should Arsenal adopt the same sort of tactics when we go to Manchester next Sunday? Would we be more than happy to come away with a point or do the Gunners really need all three to claw back some of the gap to Man City at the top of the table?
Bob.