It’s the first of four away ones tonight and I don’t think you’ll get many Arsenal fans arguing the toss over this one being the bottom of the pecking order in terms of ‘must win’ priorities. Preston away and the League Cup is a ‘nice to have’ and whilst Mikel Arteta was keen to stress that a ‘balance’ has to be found in terms of team selection tonight, I think it should be fairly obvious that he needs to undertake some mass-scale rotation this evening.

He did give an update on player availability and confirmed – thankfully – that Timber is fine. He even said of big Gabi “hopefully he’ll be fine” and so I have my fingers crossed that the Brazilian and Saliba are re-united for Newcastle away next weekend. Calafiori is “still a few weeks” and I have an outside hope that maybe Odegaard can be on the bench for Saturday. Arteta confirmed he’s been running on grass for a few weeks and I suspect training this week – when it isn’t pre-match prep – has involved him with his teammates. A good sign.

Heck, maybe Arteta should just leave a bunch of them at London Colney for a c=kick around with the captain? I tell you who I’d have on that list:

  • Partey
  • Saliba
  • Timber
  • Saka
  • Rice
  • Trossard
  • Havertz
  • Martinelli

You can get at least a couple more and have a few six-a-side games in Hertfordshire, rather than make the trek up to Lancashire, surely…

So who the devil does he pick tonight then? As I’ve already alluded too, I think we should see mass-scale rotation, so for me I’d have:

Setford (bet Neto is annoyed that he played in that League Cup game for Bournemouth now)

Nicholls   –   Heaven   –   Kiwior   –   Zinchenko

Jorginho

Merino   –   Lewis-Skelly

Nnwaneri  –   Jesus   –  Sterling

Now hear me out on this one:

  • We could play Raya, but why risk it?
  • Nicholls did pretty well against Bolton so why not give him a shot in at right back?
  • Kiwior needs minutes in case of more injuries, even if big Gabi isn’t fully fit for Newcastle, this would be good to have him in there
  • Zinchenko too, needs minutes and although I would have tinkered with him in midfield, Arteta just doesn’t seem to want to do that for some reason
  • Lewis-Skelly is actually a midfielder who we’ve been playing at left back, so I am thinking he can play in that left midfield position and have more licence to go forward
  • Nwaneri in the front three to see how much damage he can do, alongside two experienced players who should be wanting to stake a claim for more regular inclusion, which this game gives them an opportunity in.

If that team is selected then you’ve got a balance of five Hale Enders and six senior pro’s, which should be enough on the pitch to make a good game of this. As I mentioned yesterday, Preston are having an indifferent start to their season, they were pegged back from being three-up against Plymouth on the weekend and by the sounds of it they’ll go with pretty much their first team squad – Heckingbottom perhaps sensing a bit of a scalp and an opportunity to embed in a little more momentum to a side that are still unbeaten in their last five matches, albeit with a few draws in there. I won’t pretend to know any of their players other than the ‘keeper Freddie Woodman, who was highly rated a few years back when at Newcastle and I think we might have even been linked with him when he was a kid. His career has clearly not hit the heights of when we was a precious teenage talent. Other than that, it would be silly for me to sit here and tell you all about them, as I don’t really watch any Preston football (despite them and Blackpool being the two closest ‘decent’ clubs to me when I was at uni in Lancaster many moons ago), but WhoScored says that their strengths are that they win aerial duels and they like playing long balls and being aggressive. I suspect we’ll get a bit of route one football today then, so it will be interesting to see whether Arteta goes a bit stronger in defence than what I have mapped out. The only problem with that, of course, is that who is Arteta going to risk? I wouldn’t want him to risk Saliba, Timber, Partey, at all. I wonder if he’ll go with Saliba for Heaven though, because of his prowess and especially if we’re up against long-ball merchants today.

What WhoScored does say is that they aren’t great at defending against through balls and they don’t really keep possession of the ball, so expect us to have more of it tonight, with maybe some set pieces in which we will need to take advantage of, because apparently they foul a lot in dangerous areas.

The draw for the quarter final takes place at 10.30pm tonight and so if Arsenal are in it, then you’d expect us to have a tough game with whoever we’re up against. Liverpool are up against Brighton, Newcastle play Chelsea, 115 Charges FC play the Scum, United are at home to Leicester and it’s Palace at Villa Park to complete the set. Regardless of what happens to us tonight, it’ll be a Premier League encounter in the next round for the winners of us or Preston.

And suddenly you’re in to the quarter finals and the idea of a bit of a momentum generator starts to kick in. But not right now. Right now this is a ‘nice to have’ and it’ll be nice to go through, but I’m not going to be too despondent if we don’t progress.

Back tomorrow for some more musings. I’ll catch you all then.

Laters peeps.