The matches will be played on a home-and-away basis in the weeks beginning 19th and 26th January. I'm not 100% sure which leg comes first but we preceded Boro out of the hat so I dare say it's Highbury first.

Arsenal beat the Baggies last night with a mixture of youth and experience, and it'll be very interesting to see what kind of team we field in January. The Champs League doesn't start again for a few weeks after the league cup semi. Chances are we might put out a less strong side against Boro than we would have against Tottenham. But it's possible that Boro's relatively defensive approach would cause them more problems. M. Wenger will presumably keep his cards close to his chest. So far he's said that "it is very difficult to predict what I will do", and if he can't predict it then who are we to even try? He did say that he will "pick a side that has a chance to win the game", so that just about rules out drafting in the Arsenal Ladies team.

Inevitably, the Boro semi was a draw. Amazingly, though, it wasn't goal-less after 90 minutes with Ricketts (Michael) levelling Sicknote's 2nd minute opener with 4 minutes to go. Keller saved the 5th penalty from Mendieta to take it to sudden death after Schwarzer had saved from Poyet, but then Tarricco missed the first in sudden death and Quedrue scored to deny Tottenham the chance to be beaten by Arsenal once more.

Bolton will be missing their main man Jay Jay Okocha for the semi-final, as the African Nations Cup will be on then. While Arsenal will also be missing a player who's been a key presence in the League Cup run so far, we can replace Kanu a lot more easily than they can replace Okocha.