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Goal! Arsenal 1-0 Wigan (Madueke, 10)
Wigan have lasted 10 minutes….oh. Eze releases Madueke, a fine pass, and Madueke slots under Tickle. Too easy,
8 min: Lewis-Skelly, cutting into an inside-left position, zings a shot just over the bar after the corner comes back out to him.
7 min: Jesus rwists and turns in the Wigan box but runs out of room. Eze, on the edge of the D, skids in a shot, and it comes off a defender for a corner. Activate: Jover.
6 min: Sam Tickle grasps the ball from Madueke, and smashes a long goal-kick, old-style. Arsenal’s defenders deal with it just fine.
4 min: Madueke and Saka together is a rare pleasure. It’s raining in London, as it has been for days. There’s a chap round here offering a guttering service. Feels like a few people will need it in this soggy winter. Villa v Newcastle, by the way, was dry, no rain, to go Blind Melon.
2 min: Charles Antaki gets in touch: “Right. The Arsenal supporter really doesn’t ask for much. Here we are, at home against a very-much-lower-division side, and able to call on many multiples of millions of pounds’ worth of footballer. Top of the domestic league. In good financial fettle. All good. So: let us then please have an afternoon to cast aside recent wobbles and worries; let us sit back in a comfortable leather armchair with a vintage brandy in a balloon glass, cigar in hand, and snooze through a pleasantly easy win. Noblesse oblige.”
Paul McNally gets in touch: “I always feared the day we would have to face Mr Tickle as a goalkeeper.” No relation of Jon Tickle, from Big Brother 3?
Away we go at the Emirates
1 min: Saka is lining up as a twin No 10 with Eze in front of Norgaard, with Lewis-Skelly back at left-back. That is a shame for him. Wigan start on the attack, and Lewis-Skelly is asked to do some defending.
North London Forever rings out at the Emirates. It’s something of an acquired taste.
Calafiori OUT with warmup injury
Breaking: Riccardo Calafiori got hurt in the warmup so Bukayo Saka is a starter, and captain. MLS in midfield looks like it will be an experiment for another day.
Sunday’s FA Cup matches already.
Other scores:
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Oxford 0-1 Sunderland
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Stoke 1-2 Fulham
Myles Lewis-Skelly in midfield is the move a few Gunners fans have been waiting for. He’s a left-back when in the first team but found it tough to win a place. He’s been bred as a midfielder. Touch of the Trent Alexander-Arnold there, perhaps.
Kevin Archer gets in touch: “I may be over-tired and easily confused, but did you say in your opening preamble that the FA Cup was “a holiday for Ryan Lowe and his team”, and then go on to inform us that Ryan Lowe had been sacked last week? Not much of a holiday that. Reminds me of the time I went on holiday recently and both my kids came down with chicken pox. Super.”
Presume Ryan Lowe is on holiday somewhere. Hopefully his kids don’t come down with chicken pox.
Graham Barrow, with fine Lancastrian accent, speaks to TNT: “The club is in a good place. I just told them to wave to their families and get on with it. It’s been hard work getting to this. The lads out there are the one who got us there. It is a relief from the league and the grind. The owners deserve more as they saved the club."
He reminds that Wigan played Arsenal in the 2014 semi-final at Wembley.
A blueprint for Messrs Barrow and Whelan?
As Joe Meadway writes as he gets in touch: “Thankfully we sacked Ryan Lowe last week after a 6-1 defeat at Peterborough. So it’s now Graham Barrow and Glenn Whelan and their team, and much more confidence of staying up this season than before. The less said about Lowe the better.”
Graham Barrow is on his sixth turn as Wigan caretaker; he’s 71. Glenn Whelan, the former Ireland international and Pulis lieutenant, is on his second spell as caretaker. If that doesn’t tell you Wigan have been having a tough time, then I don’t know what does.
The big news is that William Saliba starts, as Eberechi Eze, the star man of last season’s FA Cup, get his chance to shine. That Gunners front three has a fluid look about it. Still no Kai Havertz.
Glenn Whelan and Graham Barrow are in charge of Wigan after Ryan Lowe was sacked last week. Via their website, here’s their team news: “Owen Moxon replaces former Arsenal man Matt Smith in the engine room, while Raphael Borges Rodrigues and Joe Taylor come in for Harrison Bettoni and Christian Saydee in attack.”
The teams
Arsenal: Arrizabalaga, White, Saliba, Mosquera, Calafiori, Lewis-Skelly, Norgaard, Eze, Madueke, Martinelli, Jesus. Subs: Setford, Hincapie, Gabriel, Zubimendi, Rice, Trossard, Saka, Salmon, Gyokeres
Wigan: Tickle, Fox, Aimson, Kerr (Capt), Hunt, Murray, Weir, Moxon, Raphael, Wright, Taylor. Subs: Savin, Sessegnon, M.Smith, Hungbo, McManaman, Bettoni, Costelloe, Saydee, Asamoah Jr.
Preamble
Both these teams have been winners in the 21st century, with Wigan winners in 2013. Arsenal are an opponent who carry portents as it was at the Emirates, three days later, that a 4-1 defeat condemned them to relegation from the Premier League, where they have never returned. This season, the Latics, who have been through financial and ownership issues in recent years, are fighting a relegation battle, one that should they lose, will drop them down to League Two. They have not been a fourth-tier club since 1997, when they came into the Football League in 1978. So, the FA Cup is a holiday for Ryan Lowe and his team Wigan. Arsenal have one trophy in focus, the Premier League but surely they can’t slip up here? It would register as one of the greatest FA Cup shocks in history. Which is why we’re here.
Kick-off at 4.30pm, UK time. Join me.
