suburbangooners.com

Vale at Vale and a cheeky away day in the Champions League?

Suburban Gooners Logo Suburban Gooners Logo It’s the tie we all dreamed of, let’s be honest: PortVale away in the third round of the League Cup at Vale Park.

In all seriousness though, this is quite a nicetie for all involved. I couldn’t remember the last time we went there, I had a feeling it was about 20 years ago and we won 3-0, so I had a little Google and I was waaaaay off. It was a 1-1 draw in the FA Cup in 1998. The team that day included Seaman, Bould, Dixon, Winterburn, Keown, Overmars, Wright, Bergkamp, Vieira, Parlour and even Stephen Hughes for good measure. We won it on penalties in what I’d assume was hardly an epic encounter for the ages.

This encounter week commencing 22nd September will be somewhat different I suspect. For one thing, I doubt you’ll see a full first team like we did that day in January 98; Arteta will use the opportunity to give games to some of the younger players, but mainly those squad rotation options that haven’t played as much recently and I suspect the expectations should be that even with that rotated team, we should have enough.

This is a different beast, of course, to the one that nearly got away with it last night against Grimsby. Honestly, how bad are that United? I get it, they rotated in a few players who have not played as much so far, but by the sounds of it nobody really played well in that united side and whereas some people were saying that a 1-0 win up there on opening day might look like a better result in the fullness of time, based on what they’ve produced in the last two games, you’d have to say “I don’t think so”. We’ll see.

We’ll also see today who we have as our fixtures in this Champions League format that we’re all used to. It’ll be eight games spread across September to February and when I looked at the options for us from the ‘tier one’ bracket that I saw, we’ve got a tough one because frustratingly Chelsea are in that ‘tier one’ as well as City and Liverpool. That narrows our chances and means we’ll be having one of PSG, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Dortmund or Bayern. We’ll get one home and one away from that and if I’m looking at the preferred options you’d probably say a Dortmund as one you’d like to have, then I’d like to have a revenge tie at home. So PSG, Barca or Bayern would be good. Real Madrid? We did that last season. We got no beef with them. But we need to come up against one of those other guys and get a scalp. It would be big if we did; it would show that we finished in the semi’s last season and we’re planning on going deep this season, with the best way of doing that being to pick up a win in the group stages and dealing a psychological blow to another team expected to go deep in the competition. Let’s see what a more well-stocked Arsenal squad can do against some of those big guns.

From ‘Pot two’ I’d like to play Leverkusen away and then maybe somebody like a Juventus at home. Leverkusen is near Cologne where I have family, plus I wouldn’t mind us having a crack at a Ten Haag side who have been stripped of it’s big parts already this summer, it looks like from the outside. In ‘Pot three’ you start to get to the ‘don’t mind who we play’ bracket, but in the interest of picking somebody to see how many I was right with when the draw is made, I’d like to see Ajax away and Bodo/Glimt at home. A trip to Amsterdam means an easy turnaround for the players and a Norwegian side that were beaten by the Scum last season at home would be one you’d have expectations we can do the business on. It’s also for that reason that the one you definitely DON’T want to be playing away against from ‘Pot four’ is Kairat from Kazakhstan. That would be a hella long trip and Arteta and his lads could really do without a mammoth journey like that wedged in between Premier League games. So I’d take a Union Saint-Gilloise from Belgium away from home, followed by a home tie against somebody like Pafos or Kairat at home. What you don’t want is both of the European teams from Pot four who at least have a bit of pedigree in Galatasary or Monaco. We’ve also done those games before, so something different wouldn’t go amiss when the draw is made later today. Selfishly, what I could also do without is a home game first, as I’m in Greece. An away game to Pafos might mean the wife misses out on some Santorini time though…

Let’s wait to see what unfolds. Then before you know it, we’ll have Mikel Arteta in front of the press tomorrow giving us an update ahead of an early season crunch game against Liverpool.

catch you tomorrow.

Share This Story, Choose Your Platform!

Gooner born in 1982 from Harlow, Essex, now living in Uxbridge. I say what I see - frequently wrong, but hey, it's just an opinion piece, right? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.