With our Carabao Cup tie with Liverpool being canceled midweek, we still haven’t had a chance to wipe away the City game from our minds and as well as our disdain for Stuart Atwell. Tomorrow, Arsenal get to start their FA Cup campaign against Championship side Nottingham Forest. Some of you might remember us being eliminated by this side in the 2018 FA Cup in the game that might have ended Per Mertesacker’s career. Forest find themselves in two game skid with their last match being taking place in 2021 so it is fair to expect a decently strong lineup from them.
As it pertains to the Gunners, we are strongly affected by AFCON with Thomas Partey, Auba, Pépé, and Elneny all participating for their countries. With our last match being the City match, we probably can expect something close to our full strength lineup minus the AFCON absentees.
Below is my prediction for the starting XI:
I’ll say Emile Smith Rowe, Holding Nuno, and Leno are the only nail down starters for me as they did not fully participate against City. Good chance we see Charlie Patino coming off the bench. A few other Academy products have been selected for the match tomorrow such as Omari Hutchinson and Mika Biereth so there is a chance we see them depending how the match plays out.
I’m not the biggest Mikel Arteta fan but our recent run of form after our horrendous start to the year has proven me wrong but games like Everton and United away still linger in my mind. We will see how the boys react and try to get our season back on track after the robbery last week against City.
It would be super dope if we win tomorrow, I’ll say 2-0 to the good guys.