EFL Cup semi-final draw adds to schedule worries

Morning all.

Sorry the blog is a bit later than usual but I was out with James in Dublin last night. He’s here on a top secret mission, so when he had a small break from that, we had a couple of drinks and some food. I wish I could tell you all what this top secret mission is, but sadly it’s top secret. I’ve built it up too much. It’s not top secret. I just can’t say anything about it. It’s not my place. Anyway, we had a nice time, and we actually recorded a festive Waffle podcast which will be available for Patreon members next week.

We’re in that quiet spot between the last game and Saturday’s trip to Everton. To slightly fill the gap there’s the EFL Cup semi-final draw to unpack. We were keeping an eye on the scores last night, and had decided that if results went the right way, we’d take a two-legged semi over Fulham, before potentially facing Brentford in the final. That seemed like a perfectly cromulent outcome.

But, the football gods had other ideas. If we beat Crystal Palace next week, it’ll be Chelsea in the semi-finals, and then one of Man City or Newcastle in the final if we get through that. I have to be honest and say that right now, the prospect of that semi-final does not thrill me. It’s not so much the opposition (although they are disgusting and odious), or even the intensity of two London derbies (with the second one at home), it’s more about the way we seem to lose a player every game to injury. Therefore, if we have more games, we increase our chances of seeing somebody else become a casualty of this season. I know that’s not logically how it works, but it’s how I feel.

In a few weeks time, after one of his press conference in which Mikel Arteta tell us he has to wait and see and that it’s a matter of days for the litany of players we have in the newly constructed Florence Nightingale Ward at London Colney (already there are people on trolleys waiting for beds), we’ll select a team for a Premier League game that looks like: Kepa, half of Timber, Gabriel Heinze, Hincapie, Zinchenko (recalled from loan, picks up a injury in the first minute), Rice, Steve, Steve’s mate with the beard whose name nobody can remember, Oxlade-Chamberlain (re-signed on a short-term 6 year deal), Lamp, Inanimate Carbon Rod.

We’ll win 2-1, but nobody will be happy. I want Arsenal to win trophies, some more than others obviously, but I’m a bit torn on this. I don’t ever want us to lose, but would I be that unhappy if we went out to Palace? Actually yes. But no. But also yes. I get the fear of the schedule, which I think I’ve laid out above, but if you’re a big club this is what you have to deal with. It’s why you have a big squad. And, for a club that has not won any silverware since 2020, we can hardly behave like one of the four trophies on offer in a season is beneath us. That’s a kind of arrogance that is both unbecoming and dangerous, because it can lead to a kind of mental rot setting in.

At the same time, I understand the priorities. I remember last season how much those semi-finals against Newcastle seemed to take out of us, although I think the Premier League race was more or less done at that point. Liverpool had a 6 point gap at the top with a game in hand. Then we played like crap, having lost Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Jesus in January, before losing Gabriel Martinelli in one of the semis and Kai Havertz directly afterwards. Would we have been able to chase down Liverpool with Havertz and Martinelli fit? Maybe not, but maybe we’d have had a better chance of winning a Champions League semi-final with an actual striker (no offence to Mikel Merino).

The one thing I’d say is that I hope that with the demands on players the way they are these days, that the anachronistic two-legged semi-final thing gets consigned to history in the not too distant future. I really think that’s a big part of why some people will be looking at this competition and are willing to bin it off at the quarter-final stage. One game is much easier to live with for obvious reasons, but it is what it is now, and maybe Steve’s mate with the beard whose name nobody can remember can do the business and give some key players a rest. Not to mention, we have to navigate our way beyond a very good Palace side too, which is hardly a foregone conclusion.

Right, that’s it. I need more coffee. We’ll have an Arsecast for you a bit later today too, so stand-by for that.

Until later.