If you didn't have such chubby ****ing digits for fingers then you wouldn't make so many spelling mistakes
Your phone says otherwise In all seriousness though, it was good to see Giroud back in the team getting some game time. I said earlier in the thread, but we are going to need him soon going into the thick of games in the winter, with Premier League, Champions League and League cup games coming up. We missed him against Boro, when we needed a big target man up front.
I was travelling back from a business meeting in Leeds and listened to the BBC commentary on Radio 5 live extra - Ian Brown with Mark Schwarzer as summariser. It sounded like a fairly routine win with the younger players gaining some good experience. However, they were both fairly dismissive of Perez's effort and merely reported that he looked fed up at being subbed. No mention of any injury. Just bad commentary or some element of truth?
Perez got a knock to the ankle, tried to run it off but couldn't.... went down for further treatment and HAD TO BE SUBBED! The "fed up" is bollocks... more likely frustrated at getting an injury.
I wanted to avoid Liverpool and Utd so that some of the youngsters still get more game time rather than be tempted to go full strength already but Southampton were third on my list of who to avoid in the draw. So probably in the mid-range of difficulty. It's a home tie though and Southampton are in the Europa so are likely to field a slightly weakened team too. Not the easiest game but hopefully we can get a result and a semi final. The safe bet is on semi finals consisting of Arsenal, Hull, Liverpool and Utd, so chances are after this round the games become first team games (probably still with the odd squad player getting game time) rather than youth team games.
I'm not overly confident about the tie. People think they're going to field a weakened team, but so will we and the reality is: Southampton don't win many trophies, so this is a major opportunity for them to get their hands on some silverware. We'll probably put out a similar side to the one we did against Reading. Puel will know that this competition is the least of Wenger's priorities and so I reckon they will start a strong XI. I've said it before, but I really do ****ing hate playing Southampton because they always give us a bloody hard game and they have the players to get the better of us. It took us 94 minutes to beat them in the league match which, in all honesty, we were pretty fortunate to win on the balance of play. We struggled to break down a well-organised team who were deadly on the counter. Southampton might look to dominate the ball more in this one, though, because I'd imagine we're going to field a pretty youthful midfield. Will be another tight affair, but I honestly can't call it.
We should have more options available when the Southampton game comes - Giroud, Ramsey and Xhaka will make a difference. I would be tempted to give Ramsey a free role similarly with Wales and put Elneny and Xhaka in midfield to make us more defensively tight. We haven't seen those two play together much and it would allow us to change strategy in the future.
I think you're right about Southampton putting out a strong side for this one, as it's a good chance of a trophy for them. I guess a lot depends on their other fixtures, do they have Europey games sandwiched in between ? If so, they could try and rest some players too.