Good Evening and Welcome to today’s blog on The Carabao Cup or for the sake of clarity, Carling Cup fixture this evening, between Arsenal and Brentford at Emirates Stadium.

I will be taking us through possible lineups, thought process of Unai Emery to this game and competition, predictions and so much more…

🚨Arsenal Match Alert 🚨

🆚 Brentford
🗓 Thursday, Sep 27
🏆 Carabao cup
🏟 Emirates Stadium
⏰ 00:15 am IST
🖥 Comment if u know the channel #AFC #COYG pic.twitter.com/4qGzgEdsRB

— Arsenal India 🇮🇳 (@ArsenalIndians) September 26, 2018

So without much further ado, let’s jump right in, shall we?

The Gunners are at home for this clash and hopefully that should be a bonus for the lads. That said, it is about how much of an advantage, we are going to be able to rely on for this game…at this point.

Brentford play a balanced-direct style of football with a hitman in the form of French Striker Neal Maupay. Maupay plays with an eagerness to perhaps achieve what his surname sounds like in a bigger club. With 8 goals and 3 assists so far this season for Brentford, it goes without saying that he is not goal shy.

When you mix this reality with Arsenal’s perchance for unforced errors at the back, it is easy to come to the conclusion that, a clean sheet against Brentford tonight is almost a bar joke.

Furthermore, it seems Unai Emery has got plans to continue with the precedence, set by former Boss and Legend, Arsene Wenger’s approach to this competition, by using young players instead. This much is deductible from his interview, on the club’s official website,

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For us, every competition is important and also [this is one] that we can play and find our way in this competition and towards this title…

Also we can give players chances to play, chances to take confidence and minutes in the game. 

For us it is the opportunity to do well in this competition, looking towards the title and look to ask the players for performance. One possibility is to give the players who are playing less in one competition to take minutes and this responsibility going forward.

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Judging by that statement and body language during the interview, I have no doubt that, we will be seeing a lot of young and fringe players, getting the nod for this one.

Hence, I expect our possible line-up to look like this;

This line up will definitely ensure victory over The Bees, but I suspect Unai Emery may include youngsters like Joe Willock, Eddie Nketiah and the likes, in place of some above.

Brentford manager Dean Smith’s will possibly retain the line-up that lost to Derby over the weekend, hence;

It is also possible former Gunner Nico Yennaris is preferred to Lewis or Henrik on the right side of the pitch.

Predictions:

Having seen Manchester United fall, courtesy of Derby who coincidentally defeated Brentford last weekend, I know this will not be a walk in the park for The Gunners.

Depending hugely on Leno’s performance, I predict a 4-1 victory for The Gunners.

Worst case scenario:

We squander most of chances, eventually score 1 and concede in the last 5 minutes from a corner set piece, sending the fixture towards a replay.

Date: 26th September 2018…Tonight

Time: 19:45

Tournament: EFL (Carabao Cup) 3rd Round

Venue: Emirates Stadium.

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