Given that Arsenal played on Saturday, I did something I don’t always normally do, in watching the other kick offs that were on Sky Sports yesterday. Usually when Arsenal aren’t on, I’ll find something else to do with The Management and as a result I’m not usually by a TV, but yesterday I was hanging a little bit and so decided not to bother with too much activity so instead got to take in West Ham against Everton and Man United against City. The first match I was interested in because we play West Ham in the League Cup on Wednesday, so it was interesting to get an idea on how they are playing and what the line up and style would be. West Ham started the season pretty well, but as I’ve now learned, recently it hasn’t been great and yesterday they didn’t look that great either against an Everton team that has been really struggling in this league.

But the reason I watched the game – to see how they might play against us – felt a little pointless in the end (a bit like West Ham come full time!). Pointless because there’s no way the game state on Wednesday night will be anything like what it was for both teams yesterday. Everton were – pre kick off – towards the bottom of the table, with West Ham looking to climb at least one place to eighth after Man United eventually capitulated against City (which they did). The game state and the fact West Ham were at home against a team towards the bottom of the division meant that this was always going to pan out one way if/when Everton took the lead; backs to the wall, dogged defending, Sean Dyche on the side moaning about absolutely everything, then Everton hitting West Ham on transition.

As I watched the game pan out I started to wonder about what happens if Arsenal get the first goal on Wednesday night. If that happens – and I’m sure that’s of course what we all want – then the game state doesn’t really feel like it will change like it did for Everton. Unless Arsenal score the first goal of the game in the last ten minutes or so, in which case you’d expect West Ham to throw everything at us because it’s a cup game, the game itself doesn’t really change because the expectation is for Arsenal to keep going for a second or a third. We’re not built to just tuck in and hit teams on the counter in transition with a game plan like Everton’s. Sure, we’ve shown we can do that, but it isn’t really something that you’d expect from us if we’re going ahead after 20 or 30 minutes, is it?

Which then led me to thinking about how Arteta prepares for this game, because it’s not as if he can look at the match against Everton and take much from it. Perhaps you can look at how individuals are playing and then look to try to highlight weaknesses in the West Ham team, but the expectation is that there will be plenty of rotation for both teams on Wednesday, so if you’ve isolated a certain way to play against a player and they don’t play, then it feels kind of redundant when the teams are announced.

It just goes to show you how difficult it is to prepare for these types of games. I’m sure Arteta will love to get another win and progress to the next round of the League Cup, but let’s be honest here, it is number four on the list of priorities and so I wonder if he can really prepare for it like he would a Premier League game against the same side. Because if we were playing them in the league on Wednesday, you’d know that the likely line up Moyes picks will be similar to the one that played yesterday for them.

We’ll probably get a press conference tomorrow so won’t really get an update on player availability, although having posed the question about Gabby Jesus and Partey to somebody in the ground on Saturday, they seemed to think it’d be a month for Jesus and two months for Partey. I really hope not on both counts. Arteta suggested a couple of weeks and there’s no reason not to believe that, but if that timeframe does come though (and the guy couldn’t remember where he’d heard that timeframe for them to come back to be fair) as that, then it’ll be a huge blow for us. Jesus in particular and in particular when you look at that Newcastle game looming on the horizon. That is a tough place to go, they have a very good team and you’ll expect it to be a really difficult match, so having your best players available is something that is kin d of a must in these fixtures. But right now it almost feels as though we’re doomed not to see our best team play this season. We’re 10 Premier League matches in (a quarter of a season) and we still haven’t had our best line up play. Yet we’re still in with a shout and at least trying to keep pace with those teams at the top of the league, we’re doing alright in the Champions League and as of now we’re still in the League Cup. We all acknowledge that we can play better and the Sheffield United game was hopefully a good start, but it does feel like we’re going to need to get a run together of all of our best players fit before we really ‘click’ in my opinion. As great as the game was on Saturday against Sheffield United, we can’t “play you every week” as the song goes, so we need to get some of these players back so we can start to field the team that we all hope and want.

Right, I’ll leave it there for today I think. You enjoy the rest of your Monday and I’ll catch you tomorrow.