It’s FA Cup match day for The Arsenal and it’s a home tie for us, as we bid to make it 15 times as FA Cup winners, a competition in which we are very familiar with and have won more than any other team in history.

I don’t know why, but whilst I do have the normal butterflies ahead of a big game, I’m not feeling the usual stresses that I would a normal knockout tie. I would also go as far to suggest that I might be feeling more nervous about the league game against the Scousers than I do today. I’ll let you know if that rings true at the beginning of February when we play them. But…I dunno…I just don’t feel the same. I don’t feel it’s as much of a ‘free hit’ game as the League Cup is, because those are fun and just an opportunity to see rotation and just be a bit ‘meh’ when you get knocked out, but this game feels just a couple of notches up the nerves ladder for me. It isn’t dialled up to ten or anything. I guess that’s probably because we’ve won it in recent memory (four year’s ago) and because we’ve done it so many times, but probably because it’s the third round of the competition and before I get my away day out at Wembley for a semi final, there would still be another three rounds to get to. It’s sort of like when you have an amazing holiday planned for about six months time; you know it’s happening, you’ll be super excited when it draws nearer, but right now you’ve just got to get on with school/work and wait for the day to come.

Of course this isn’t the mindset any of us want Arteta and his team to have and I absolutely don’t think they will do. They’ll want to win this and set us up for a warm weather winter training session in which the players are bouncing. And that is the up side of such a tie as this one; if the players manage to get over the line and beat Liverpool, then the Christmas malaise that set in after two back-to-back defeats will feel a little less dramatic than it did on New Year’s Day. In his press conference Arteta spoke not of confidence being lost, but of momentum, so now he must know that a big way of building that back up, is by getting a big win and a scalp like Liverpool.

Team news wise I think we’re all still sweating on what happens with Zinchenko. We know there won’t be any other changes to the injury or absentee list and with Tomiyasu out at the Asia Cup the option will Be Kiwior or the Ukrainian. I actually think that Kiwior would be better than he was against Fulham if he played though; he’s clearly a better defender than Zinny and against Fulham it was our ponderous build up and attack that was the issue. But against Liverpool we’ll almost certainly have to be better defensively to keep them out and so my hope is that if Zinchenko isn’t fit, then we get a fine performance from Kiwior. He kinda needs it.

The rest of the team will almost certainly be ‘as is’ I would have thought. Perhaps we might see Ramsdale come in and I think Arteta probably should do that given the lack of games that Rammers has had, but if Raya starts then it’s just another example of how Arteta’s “I have two number ones” was clearly hollow words. I’ve accepted it’s Raya and whilst I haven’t quite moved on, I’m not going to be mega frustrated as I was at the start of the season. As for the rest, like I say, I think it’ll be ‘as you were’. The players have had a whole week since the last game, we have a week off after this game at least, so it is an opportunity to go strong, see if you can win it, then jet off to Dubai. So for me that means Rice, Havertz, Odegaard, Saka, Gabriel Jesus, Martinelli. I’ve seen some suggest that Jorginho might be an option in the base of the midfield and I’d probably have no issue with that if we’re talking about most other teams, but Liverpool are a back to front team in transition and they want to break on you in numbers. If Jorginho is broken against, then it’ll be a car crash, as we all know he doesn’t have the pace, so for me I’d stick with the same side that played against Fulham. Plus, Arteta can tell them to prove they deserve to start given such a shocking performance against the Cottagers.

As for Liverpool, they have their absentees – Salah, Endo, Szoboszlai through injury – to add to the existing absentees of Thiago, Matip, Robertson and Tsimikas, but from the sounds of it Klopp won’t be rotating much this afternoon against us. He even said in his presser that now is not the time for it, so I expect them to be very strong and their squad is certainly good enough even with all of those absentees. I’ve read a few of the Liverpool fan site expectations and their mood is fairly even from what I can see. One guy I watched predicted a 1-1- with a ‘I’ll take a draw’. I guess you’d say that when you’re away from home. They reckon they’ll do a fair bit of rotation and the guy I saw a video of was even suggesting no Alexander-Arnold, which I can’t see happening at all. He’s the guy that makes them tick, is their quarter back from deep and if we go as strong as we all think Arteta will, it’ll leave a younger player up against Martinelli.

The other wing will be interesting because Joe Gomez had a good game against Saka and I suspect Saka will want to correct that today. I feel like he hasn’t always faired well against centre backs playing as full backs; I remember thinking last season that he’d roast Dan Burn when we played Newcastle and it never really happened, plus we had the games against City away in the league and cup where Ake seemed to keep him quiet all game. Perhaps it’s just me extrapolating based on some very small sample sizes, but I do think we need to see a game in which Saka has a blinder against a makeshift fullback/centre half.

We are going to need to be on it in defence though. They have an array of options including Darwin, Gakpo, Luis Diaz and then of course, that curse that is Diogo Jota. The man has six goals in his last seven appearances against us and I am in no doubt that Klopp will be getting him on and wanting him to be front and centre against us today. Saliba and Gabriel need to keep him quiet, but also be mindful of their two other forwards as well. Any of those guys are capable of bagging goals and last season Nunez did, so whilst some Arsenal fans chuckle at how many chances Darwin Nunez does miss, you can bet your bottom dollar he won’t miss if being given the chance today.

We could do without a draw, Liverpool could do without a draw, so I’m hoping that we don’t get that because it’ll cut the mini winter break down and we could do without that. Plus the chances of us winning at Anfield are always slim. So for me I am hoping that Arsenal go hard at this and try to regain some of that lost momentum Arteta talks about it. It kind of feels like we need it more than Liverpool right now.

I’ll be doing a Same Old Arsenal show with Amanda this evening at around 8pm I reckon, but if you fancy a little more listening ahead of today’s game, the two James’ did the preview show midweek which you can hear here. So I’ll catch you all then. Have a good one.