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Gibbsy looking to shine again

If there’s one thing you can’t fault Arsene Wenger, it is his ability to find prodigious talents from all over the world and make them into modern day stars of football. If you think that the formula is as simple as scouting those talents and bringing them to London Colney and the rest will be history, then think again. Not only are these boys measured in terms of their footballing brains, they are also tested on their psychological values as well.

These questions prepared by Jacques Crevoisier are not easy to answer. It is a very long list of questions (all 117 of them) designed to understand the nature and motivation of each player and using it to gauge their mental growth as a footballer. With such precise screening on and off the football pitch, it is no wonder that since Wenger took over the reigns, we’ve had such tremendous number of good players coming through. Tonight will be another good chance to see just how effective these systems are.

Arsenal visits Newcastle in the Fourth Round tie of the Carling Cup at St James Park tonight. The home side only just returned to top flight football this season will probably put more focus to retaining their Premier League status rather than trying to win this competition. As we’ve seen with the previous round, manager Chris Hughton mixes his team around for this competition and we will expect them to do likewise tonight. We’ll probably get to see their first teamers next weekend when they visit the Grove for a league game.

As for us, we have a couple of players who returned from injuries since last week and those are the ones which will be a certainty to start. This is how I see us lining up tonight;

Szczesny

Eboue—Squillaci/Nordtveit—Koscielny—Gibbs

Rosicky—Denilson—Diaby

Walcott—Bendtner—Vela

You will forgive my optimism but that itself is a very strong side in a match expected to be against a second string Newcastle side. I doubt Johan Djourou will play any part in tonight’s game having only recently returned to first team action and have already played 4 consecutive games. It will be better to rest him now and give him a little breather than risk him when we have other candidates for that position.

Laurent Koscielny is fit and will start this game while Harvard Nordtveit is looking to get a place after missing on our win over Sp*rs in the previous round. It is a partnership that is worth looking at as the Norwegian is essentially our fifth choice centreback and there’s no better match to blood him into the first team than this one. While another Polish keeper will earn his chance after his recent outburst on the lack of opportunities. Having seen Lukasz Fabianski make full use of his chance, Wojciech Szczesny will also want to grab the opportunity with both hands.

Further forward in midfield, there’s every chance Wenger will be fielding a relatively experienced trio. Abou Diaby missed the Manchester City game at the weekend but otherwise should slot straight back into the attacking role he occupied in the last couple of games. Denilson will once again get a chance to show particularly to Jack Wilshere that the latter’s place is the first team sheet is by no means secured. Both of them will be aptly supported by the energetic Tomas Rosicky.

Whoever Newcastle slots in their defence, it will be a major test of their credentials. This is because their are likely to come up against 3 attackers who are still young but very much an important member of the Arsenal squad as well as their national teams. Theo Walcott, Nicklas Bendtner and Carlos Vela are no spring onions by Arsenal standards and together; the combination brings with them speed, power and guile.

Vela has not had the many opportunity to shine since moving to Arsenal and will have seen his chances getting even slimmer with the purchase of Marouane Chamakh and the start that the latter has had in his new club. Perhaps rather than playing as a striker, Vela should try to re-invent himself as a wide attacker much in the mould of Walcott. He is not too shabby in terms of pace and probably has more tricks up his sleeve than Walcott.

All in all, it makes for a very good game of football tonight. Newcastle has a penchant of playing the ball on the ground as well and it looks to be a very open game. I do expect some goals in this one and maybe when we’ve sealed the victory, other like Henri Lansbury, Jay Emmanuel-Thomas and Craig Eastmond could get a run-out as well.

Till tomorrow.