FA Cup Result 24/01/10 Stoke 3: Arsenal 1
While most of Arsenal's first team were rested to concentrate on the league, Wenger's second choice selection of young talent plus former legend Sol Campbell crashed out of the FA cup at the Britannia Stadium yesterday. Although at 67 minutes and at 1:1 Wenger brought on the big guns of Arshavin and Eduardo plus the talented youngster Aaron Ramsey, this triple change was too little, too late. Ironically Stoke, who played well throughout and deserved their win, played even better after Wenger's change. The Arsenal manager had wanted to avoid a replay but got his wish granted somewhat differently than he had hoped when Fuller whacked in a second goal for the home team and Etherington got the third.
Many Gooners are bemoaning Wenger's team choice as they saw the cup competition as Arsenal's best chance of winning silverware this year. However as I wrote last week, I believe Arsenal do still have a reasonable chance of winning the league this year if they can continue their unbeaten run through their next few fixtures. In the next couple of weeks Arsenal are playing Villa, Man U, Chelsea and Liverpool and understandably Wenger did not want to add to his injury list for this challenging run in. These tough choices around team selection are unfortunately the reality for clubs who don't have owners with deep deep pockets.
Plus although the FA Cup is a great competition, winning the Premiership is a far superior prize. It was only 2 years ago that Portsmouth won the cup but have been pretty much in freefall since. This year Man United and Liverpool are already missing from the competition, which in my view would devalue the win somewhat (unless of course you are a Leeds fan)! So in my view Wenger did the right thing by resting his first team, although I am not convinced that Sol Campbell is the answer to Arsenal's defensive problems!
