Arsenal travel across London to Stamford Bridge for the first leg of their Carabao Cup semifinal against Chelsea. The Gunners will be looking to acquit themselves better than they did at this stage of the competition last year when they failed to score over two legs and were soundly beaten by Newcastle. I suspect Mikel Arteta will deploy a fairly strong lineup against the Blues, to the chagrin of those who’d like to see the club treat the League Cup with less respect. Silverware is silverware, though.
And winning begets winning.
Arsenal are in the midst of four straight away matches — the FA Cup this past weekend, today’s match, this coming weekend at Nottingham Forest, and away to Inter Milan in the Champions League. Fortunately, Mikel Arteta was able to rotate his side heavily against Portsmouth. Both today’s match and the Champions League contest against Inter Milan would be nice to win, but the results aren’t going to change much in the grand scheme of things for this season.
It is anybody’s guess how new Chelsea manager Liam Rosenoir will set up his side. They’re dealing with injuries in key spots and are in the thick of the jumbled clubs in both the Premier League and Champions League. The upcoming matches in those competitions are, perhaps, comparatively more important to Chelsea than they are to Arsenal (well, not the Premier League — ideally the Gunners win out in the PL). It’s difficult for a new manager to install his system and ideas midstream, particularly with the matches coming every three or fours days.
For Rosenoir, it’s about pushing the right buttons to refocus what looked to be a disengaged locker room and getting players back on board. In Enzo Maresca’s last few matches in charge, the Chelsea players hardly seemed to be trying. You’d see bursts of intent and energy, but not the sustained, driven effort you need to succeed. Guys weren’t working hard to track runners back, close down time and space, etc. I know that sounds an awful lot like pundit-speak — PASHUN! — but that’s my honest assessment. Chelsea looked checked out under Maresca. Rosenoir has to get his players to check back in.
After Chelsea’s recent FA Cup win, Rosenoir remarked that Cole Palmer, Reece James, and Malo Gusto are all being managed through injuries and face late fitness tests to determine their availability to face the Gunners. Romeo Lavia is still recovering from a quad issue that seems to be taking longer to heal than initially expected. Levi Colwill is likely out for the season with a torn ACL suffered in preseason. Moises Caicedo is suspended for yellow card accumulation.
Mikel Arteta revealed that both Leandro Trossard and William Saliba are carrying minor injuries that are likely (but not definitely) to keep them out of today’s contest. Piero Hincapie’s groin injury isn’t a serious one, but it seems as if it will keep him on the shelf for longer than the initial positive assessment might have suggested, if that makes sense. Cristhian Mosquera and Max Dowman are out until at least February with ankle injuries. Arteta said their return timelines are similar.
Lineups will be posted when available.
WHO: Arsenal at Chelsea
WHAT: Carabao Cup SF 1st Leg
WHERE: Stamford Bridge, London
WHEN: Wednesday, January 14th, 12:00 pm PT | 3:00 pm ET | 8:00 pm GMT
HOW TO WATCH: Streaming on Paramount+ app
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