Resident Blogger : SimonSEEZ
Honestly I am not a big fan of The Capital One Cup; this is not helped by the fact that I always have to make my brain work an extra second to process the change of name from Carling Cup to what is now. If you add all the seconds up I have spent converting that name change mentally, it’s more that the amount of time Zuckerberg used to generate the Facebook idea. Can we just call it the League Cup? That’s its original name right?
My somewhat dislike for the competition stems from two issues. Firstly, I don’t know how to apply myself to it; this is entirely Wengers fault, he publicly rates the competition last on his list for the season and has used it as a breeding ground for young talent with a view to introducing them to real match day experience. I have absolutely no problem with this. I looked forward to Carling, apologies…Capital One Cup games with a view to seeing our youth team players. They had the zest and carefree attitude youngsters had and the games were always interesting. However, our recent trophy drought has given the competition a whole new level of importance and more recently Wenger has fielded a lot more first team players. That we haven’t won it in this period and the manager still rating it as a fourth rate competition confuses me. See graph showing Arsenals inclusion of first team players in the Capital one cup from 2004 – 2010
Culled from www.arsespeak.com
See starting eleven against Bradford : Szczesny ,Sagna , Mertesacker , Vermaelen , Gibbs ,Wilshere , Ramsey (Rosicky – 69′ ) , Cazorla , Coquelin (Chamakh – 60′ ) , Podolski (Oxlade-Chamberlain – 69′ ) , Gervinho . This team should have beaten Bradford, bar Coquelin all were first team starters yet we lost to a non-league side. Wenger needs to grind the mentality that the cup is one we can win and make the fans know its one we would love to win for any team he puts out to perform.
Secondly, my worst days as an Arsenal fan have come in this competition. The final loss in 2011 to Birmingham was supposed to end our trophy drought. We were odds on favourite to win and all the discussion surrounding the event was whether Fabregas our then Captain would lift the trophy as he wasn’t billed to start in the game. It took me over a year to recover from that. Next worst day as a Gooner was the loss to Bradford, it was shameful, it was sad, very sad. The heat that came from that defeat were reminiscent of the one suffered after the Villa defeat this season. For the first time I said those words ‘WENGER OUT” expressing my total disbelief in his ability to lead this team to any type of success anymore.
We go into the competition with a game against West Brom, not an easy game by any means especially if you are not fielding your first team. I am certain a number of first team players would feature and all the talk has been about Niklas Bendtner returning in an Arsenal shirt. You need to play 6games to win this competition and like all cup competitions if you have the luck of the draw you might find yourself in the semifinals with little or no sweat. The competition might be irrelevant to Wenger but the feeling it would generate around the club should we have a good run in it and win it will be massive for everyone. At least the pundits would give us a break with the no trophies since forever line. We have won the trophy just twice and this would be a good time to win it again. #COYG
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