So the Carling Cup adventure is over for another season after a 2-0 defeat to Burnley at Turf Moor last night.
The youngsters (and Sylvester) were found wanting at the back and up front and they were beaten by a hungry home side who can add our scalp to the one of Chelsea. The difference is, of course, that we played our young players, Chelsea had more or less their first team out.
Kevin McDonald was the hero for Burnley, scoring both the goals. Mark Randall will look at replays of both of them and be less than happy with his contribution. He failed to track him for the first and was out-muscled in the area for the second. But we had chances and the forwards didn’t take them. Bendtner in particular had a very poor game and his attitude and lazy style, if it is a style and not just pure laziness, is very frustrating. He might be part of the first team squad but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have to put the effort in when he plays in the Carling Cup.
The Burnley keeper, Brian Jensen, made a number of good saves to keep us at bay. You wonder how different things might have been had Bendtner scored with that early chance, just a minute or so before Burnley scored. But it just wasn’t our night in front of goal.
Arsene Wenger said afterwards:
If you have six one-on-ones with the keeper and do not score, you have to question the qualification. You praise the goalkeeper and question the strikers.
He cut a frustrated figure on the sidelines as we saw them chase the game in the second half. Too many of the little flicks didn’t come off, some of the passing, despite our possession was careless, and in and around the box the final ball just didn’t happen on too many occasions. He said:
We had the potential to go through and we lost tonight against the least difficult team of the three we played. That is what young players learn. In football it is efficiency and focus from the first minute on and when you don’t have the right focus you pay for it.
It’s a tough lesson all right. For a lot of these players their involvement in first team football is over for the season now. Perhaps we might see some of them in the FA Cup but I’m hoping that’s a competition we take seriously this season as it provides a good chance of silverware.
But nights like last night will happen with young players. They can be brilliant one game and have a complete off-night the next. I think what will have registered with the manager is the application, or lack of it, shown by one or two. It’s a shame to go out as I do enjoy the Carling Cup as a competition but these lads have provided us with two of the most enjoyable nights of the season so far, the Sheffield United and Wigan games were fantastic, and they deserve great credit for that.
That Sky were talking about Burnley’s win over us as a bigger achievement than beating Chelsea tells you how well the Carling Cup Arsenal is regarded. Still, there’s no shame in going out of the Carling Cup to a decent Burnley side and with better finishing we might well have won.
So now the focus turns back to the league and Wigan on Saturday. We’ll preview that game over the next couple of days.
Not much else happening really. There’s some stuff about Patrick Vieira talking about how Roy Keane was his toughest ever opponent but it’s nothing we haven’t heard before, really. Anyone else think Keane with his beard looks like Harrison Ford at the start of the Fugitive? Just me them, ok.
The Mirror reports that Jay Simpson is to sign a new deal with the club. I suspect it was his little ‘tache that swayed things.
So how about a little competition to take your minds off last night’s defeat? I have three copies of the book Arsènal: The Making of a Modern Super-Club by Kevin Witcher (The Gooner) and Alex Fynn. Not just any old copies though. These are signed. By Arsene Wenger.
Not too shabby, eh? To win just answer the very simple question.
Before Arsene came to manage Arsenal he was the manager of a Japanese side. Was it:
a) Kendo Nagasaki b) Grampus Eight c) Ninja Antlers
Answers to [email protected], if you please. You have until Thursday night and the Random Number Generator will pick the three winners for Friday morning. If you don’t win you can still buy the book at a discounted price by going here and using the code ‘rocky‘ at check-out.
Right, that’s that. Have a good day. More tomorrow.
