|
According to eg Sky Sports, Arsenal are going to rest
Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp, David Seaman and Gilberto Silva
for the match against Farnborough Town tomorrow.
But Patrick Vieira returns from injury to captain the side.
Seaman will presumably be replaced by Stuart Taylor, who has been on the bench recently and whose broken finger must have healed by now.
Apart from that, it's hard to guess who'll be facing the non-leaguers. With Henry and Bergkamp both out, Jeffers has to be a good bet. But with Kanu? Wiltord? Aliadiere...?
Ray Parlour is another likely starter. Having just returned from injury he'll be keen to get some more match play under his belt. But there are plenty of candidates for the midfield slots including youngsters Svard and Bentley, as well as more regular first-teamers like Edu, Toure, Pires. Bronco van Geoffhurst will probably be at left back, since Ashley Cole is serving the second of his 2 match suspension, and Freddie Ljungberg is still injured.
We'd have liked to have seen Matty Upson too (ok I'll stop going on about him, he's gone now!). Instead, Pascal Cygan is likely to get his first start since his calf injury, giving one of Keown or Campbell a rest.
Boro are said to have a full squad to choose from, apart from possibly defender Barry Laker who will have a late test on a groin strain (he's said to have seen a faith healer to try to get it mended in time).
Watch out for their fabulously named lanky top scorer Rocky Baptiste (6 goals in 4 FA Cup games so far this season), who will probably play up front along with the experience Ken Charlery (who was mates with Sol Campbell's older brother when they were kids, see link below).
Midfielder Danny Carroll is the one who you may have seen on telly doing a "snooker cue" goal celebration (twice) during the cup win over Darlington. Apparently his nickname is "Snowy" cos he looks like the dog in TinTin! Carroll was voted "player of the third round" on the FA's website.
Farnborough have scored 17 goals in 4 games in the competitino so far. But they haven't faced anyone quite like Arsenal as yet.
See also
|