Arsenal 2-Liverpool 1

Well, as the Who said, “The Kids Are Alright”

Arsenal beat Liverpool 2-1 to go through to the quarterfinals of the Carling Cup. And look: sure, it wasn’t Liverpool’s first team, either; we were playing at home; and it wasn’t like this was a purely youth team–Senderos, Silvestre, and Eduardo can all rightfully be called veterans, and Bendtner, Fabianski, and Nasri are all young but have a lot of first-team experience. But you know what? It’s still impressive for the second-team, which had youngsters like Kerrea Gilbert, Fran Merida, and Craig Eastmond, to beat a club like Liverpool in a knockout competition. The kids will take confidence from this performance, I have no doubt.

I didn’t see the match, so I won’t give out ratings, but Merida grabbed an early goal, Insua equalized for Liverpool, and then Bendtner scored the winner after the break. The liveblog I was reading made it sound like Ramsey acquitted himself very well, and it’s great news that Nasri was able to play for 90 minutes, with no apparent ill effects. If he’s not ready for a start against Spurs on Saturday, we’ll surely see him against AZ next week.

And we’re through to the quarterfinals, which is when we got knocked out by Burnley last season. Of the eight teams remaining, all eight are Premiership sides (well, more accurately, seven Premiership sides plus Portsmouth…), so we’ll have our hands full no matter who we draw. With the exception of Liverpool, the Big 4 clubs plus challengers (Aston Villa, Tottenham, and Citeh) are still in it. The weakest clubs remaining are Blackburn and Portsmouth. That match will take place the first week of December.

Realistically, we don’t have much of a chance of winning it, but this is great in that it means the youngsters get one more well-deserved chance to show what they can do against a top-level team. And getting to the semifinals would be great, as it would mean two more matches, since the semifinals feature a two-legged tie to get to Wembley.

But well done to the kids, it’s a quality win. In lieu of ratings, I thought people might be interested in a poll. This is something I always think about when I watch these League Cup matches. If, for whatever reason, the squad that played today was its own club, how would they do? Or, in other words, if you just took away Arsenal’s first choice 11, how well could they do in the domestic (Premiership) table. Obviously top 4 would be out of the question, but could they finish in the top half of the table? Could they avoid relegation? Vote below:

How Would Arsenal’s Carling Cup Squad Do in the Premiership?(polls)

It’s tricky–they’ve put in some good performances over the last couple of seasons, but shown their vulnerability at times, too. For, I would say bottom half of the table, but I think fairly close to mid-table. I could see this squad finishing in the 12th-15th range.

Anyway, good day to be a Gunner. I’ll be back in with Spurs preview stuff on Friday.

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Category: Arsenal News, Carling Cup, Fixtures, Match Review