Kevin Whitcher
In December 2005, Arsenal visited Doncaster in the League Cup Quarter Final and scraped through on penalties after extra time. Arsène Wenger fielded a largely second string side - Almunia, Eboue, Senderos, Djourou, Cygan, Hleb, Song, Gilberto, Owusu-Abeyie (Larsson), Van Persie (Bendtner), Lupoli (Gilbert) – and got away with it. 12 years on, and Arsenal may have had home advantage, but it was another evening on which they made hard work of lower league opposition. One other consistent from the previous encounter was the appearance of Doncaster’s number 26, James Coppinger, who stood out as the driving force of the visitors’ team last night, before running out of steam and being subbed during the second half.
Still, cup football – it’s all about winning, by hook or by crook. Certainly Arsenal dominated possession and had a decent number of attempts, although not too many clear cut ones, due to the thicket of bodies in Doncaster’s 5-4-1 line-up. Meanwhile, the home side were only spared the ignominy of extra time due to a lack of pace when twice, Donny should have had one on ones with Ospina in the second half. The Colombian keeper also had to make some saves to keep a clean sheet – having a busier night than he might have anticipated.
Arsenal took the lead when Alexis Sanchez played a sweet diagonal cross into the path of Theo Walcott, who was neither offside, nor profligate in his finishing. The number 14 had an excellent chance to secure the game after the interval, but reverted to type and put the ball over with only the keeper to beat.
Not certain what to make of Sanchez starting last night. He probably does still need game time, although he played the entire 90 minutes, as he did against Cologne. That precipitated a return to the subs’ bench for the Premier League visit to Chelsea. However, West Brom allows for a further two days’ rest, and Danny Welbeck is not available. One assumes Lacazette will start on Monday night with two of Sanchez, Ozil and Iwobi accompanying him in attack. Despite his goal, it is difficult to envisage Walcott starting.
One positive development from last night was the performance of Jack Wilshere, who was heavily involved, motivated and combined well with his colleagues. Granted, there is still some way to go before he is at anything like the peak of his teenage years, but he can provide an option and should certainly be used in the Europa League. Youngsters Reiss Nelson and Ainsley Maitland-Niles did some good things, but were also guilty of some errors that would have been punished by better sides, giving away possession in dangerous situations. Per Mertesacker notably worked hard to organise the players around him.
The lower tier was about 90% full, the upper tier fairly full on the halfway line blocks but sparsely populated elsewhere. The club announced that 44,064 “tickets were issued” – which would have included a good few thousand freebies to local schools and, I imagine, community organisations. In reality, the attendance was around the 35,000 mark, with somewhere around 5,000 of those being away fans. There are probably a good few undistributed tickets sitting in headmasters’ drawers this morning due to a lack of takers. After all, it was a school night. There were certainly a large number of youngsters in the crowd even so.
I suspect we will see similar numbers for the next round against Norwich, although the relative strength of the team put out by Arsène Wenger might encourage a few more. In conclusion, job done, but far from convincing. Perhaps not a great surprise given the lack of playing time the starting eleven have had together, although an attacking line of Sanchez – Giroud – Walcott should have enough familiarity to fashion more than one goal against a League One side.
So, into the last 16 with every chance of progressing into the quarter finals. West Brom on Monday will see a more familiar eleven, and better opposition.
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