FA Cup 5th Round Draw
January 28, 2008
In the draw for the fifth round of the FA Cup which took place just moments ago in London, Arsenal were drawn away to Man United.
The match will take place the weekend of February 16/17, and you’ve got to figure that with a glamour tie such as this, it’ll be on Setanta PPV, but nothing’s certain yet.
One thing is certain, that’s going to be one hell of week what with the Milan match that following Wednesday. Wenger mentioned recently that the League and Champions League are the priorities this season. I wonder if drawing Man U changes his strategy any.
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January 28th, 2008 at 10:21 am
It looks more and more like it will be a repeat of last season. This time going out of two competitions rather than three.
January 28th, 2008 at 10:23 am
I would prefer to concentrate on winning the CL tie.
We can draw ManU into a false sense of security by losing in the FA Cup and then beat them in the league game in April on the way to winning the league title.
January 28th, 2008 at 10:26 am
With our full team we could do the business but I can just see Wenger saying “we will have to rotate, some who didn’t play on Saturday will play ……” Then he wheels out people like Walcott and Diaby.
United are not a great side but they just don’t quit and they have goal scorers galore.
January 28th, 2008 at 10:32 am
I don’t mind if he wheels the likes of Walcott and Diaby in the FA Cup tie and manages to win the CL tie. If our first team is fit and in form for the CL games, we have a good chance of winning.
January 28th, 2008 at 10:39 am
And Chelsea once again get a fluff tie. I say rotate if need be, put Jens in goal, and play our fucking hearts out. But the CL is more important to me, and Milan is there for the taking this season. Except that Pato. He needs an injury.
January 28th, 2008 at 10:46 am
Wenger has already committed to playing Jens in the FA Cup ties. We need all our big guns for Milan tie. Fit and in form, not the way they are playing now.
January 28th, 2008 at 11:04 am
There’s no reason to rest any players. I’d say we put out our strongest sides in both the CL and FA Cup, because if we don’t we will go out of both very easily.
Sometimes it’s easy to forget that having fit but demoralised players are not better than having confident but tired players to challenge the league. Winning always give confidence to all the team players and even the fringe players will be motivated to perform above expectations. If we want to mount a real challenge to the title this season it will be down to the squad players to step in when our 1st teamers are injured / tired.
I would rather risk not winning anything this season by fielding a strong team in the cups than focusing only on the league which is not guranteed to be ours anyways. Better to have tried and get nothing than to cut our chances short for silverware this season by focusing only on the league.
January 28th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
I am not surprized at the draw. I had a feeling that Arsenal would get either ManU or Chelsea. Argh. Or if Blackburn were in the F.A Cup, Arsenal would have surely gotten them…
No easy decisions for Wenger. And that too at Old Trafford. I believe it was 5 years ago that Arsenal went to Old Trafford and came out 2-0 winners. A deflected free kick from Edu and that open goal that Giggs missed stand out.
January 28th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Yeah Sachin, Wiltord was the other scorer. After beating ManU, we beat Chelsea in a replay at Stamford Bridge and went on to win the FA Cup that year (2003).
January 28th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
That F.A Cup game was almost 5 years to the date of this year’s game.
Feb 15, 2003: Man U 0-2 Arsenal.
This year, the game is on Feb 16.
Not that I want to read too much into that
We only won the F.A Cup that year. This year, I am hoping for more
January 28th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
As I said on Saturday (p), Wenger is not worried about what Arsenal do in the FA Cup, so don’t expect a full squad there.
He’s focused on the two leagues; Champions and Premier. And frankly, any trophies would be a huge achievement for a team slated to finish 5th. So, I’ll let le Boss decide.
January 28th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
This is FA Cup guys. What makes FA Cup special? Because every club can “dream”. And all the giant killings over the years made it a trademark of the competition. When Havant & W, a Blue Square South part-timers went to Liverpool, they still “dared” to dream, and in fact, grabbed two goals against Liverpool at Anfield. That’s the magic of the cup.
And we, Arsenal, one of the strongest sides in the Premiership, why should we fear of Man Utd?
It’s about time we are going out of two competitions Mazza?? Yes, if our players think like you, I afraid they would. But I suspect our current bunch of players mentally are a little bit tougher than that.
January 28th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Hey if your going to be a champ you might as well fight an equal opponent. It’s going to be Arsenal, Chel$ki and Manure for the rest of the season in at least two of the domestic Cups. So bring it on…
I’m sure Manure fans are not exactly celebrating with sighs of “Lucky us as we drew Arsenal in the FA Cup.” It’s a great competitive year in the EPL with no run away leader at this moment and as a fan it’s an exciting time to be a Gunner.
They’ve beaten them before and they’ll beat them again. Go you Gunners!!!
PS. Cups are great but league wins matter more to me this year, sure if they snag the CL Cup or the FA Cup that’s great but I’d love to see them win the League. If they don’t win the League the CL would most certainly do but it’s still early days.
January 28th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
“I’m sure Manure fans are not exactly celebrating with sighs of “Lucky us as we drew Arsenal in the FA Cup.”
Exactly.
January 28th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Plus ManU have to travel to Lyon for their first leg CL game. They also play on Feb 20th. So it will be interesting to see what line-ups both Wenger and Fergie will put out for the F.A Cup tie.
January 28th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
unfortunate draw. i say FULL lineups for both games. they are professional footballers, so i dont see why playing two games (one on saturday midday and the other on wednesday night) should be a big deal. afterall they will have a full week’s break before the ManU game anyway.
any “resting” should be done AFTER the milan game. it is not like we benefit much from too much rest anyway.
we must maintain momentum. a defeat to Man U is the worst preparation for a game against Milan…even though its just an FA cup. lets go for both. fabregas and hleb definitely DONT need rest till the end of the season.
i still wish we could get in an extra winger though.
January 28th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
for the Man U game, we should go for first team with diaby in for rosicky, bendtner and RvP in for our current strikers. ade, eduardo, rosicky and song can then chill on the bench.
for the milan game, rosicky and ade start and a decision is made btw RvP and eduardo.
players that MUST not play in either games are walcott, traore and gilberto. this three will sink the team.
January 28th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
It will be interesting indeed, to see how the managers play this one out, with both teams following up the tie with a mammoth European game. Both Arsenal and Man U are playing great this year, but I’m not too confident, mainly because of the fact it will be at Old Trafford.
Were it at the Emirates, I would be much more confident. That’s how close these two sides are. It’s also why I’ll be happy if we can muster a draw up at Trafford. Then we can bring ‘em down to London and obliterate them!!
January 28th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Spurs signed Woodgate, great signing. With Woodgate alongside King at the back, they are surely going to form a broken-glass-mountain partnership at the center… of their treatment room. Well done.
January 28th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Everyone is saying they’d rather focus on the League than the FA Cup. But keep in mind that we play ManUre in the league at Old Trafford in what I think is our 5th to last game. The last thing we want is to get overrun by them now, so that when we return for what will surely be a crucial match we have no confidence. I say we throw everything we’ve got at them. (Unless they plan to play it safe because of their midweek CL fixture as well. But if they are going to come full on, then so should we.)
January 28th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
I say we beat Man USA in the FA cup, beat Milan in CL, and beat Man USA again in EPL.
Life’s short I’m not wasting my time whinning about the draws… It’s time we started thinking like champions… otherwise we’ll never be champions
January 28th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
oh darn! we go to play Man U away… not my ideal opponents so soon, but I think we are in good form as long as we do not play as cautiously as we did at the Emirates., we can turn them over. From what I saw Spuds were just unlucky they gave them a good go.
Shock and horror, Mazza you sound like Stag before he was born again (just joking Chris
), are you in need of anti depressants? And what all that about Man Ure not being a great team (as much as I hate to a admit it)? I wish you were right but this is the most expensive and probably the best squad I have ever seen Man Ure with. I still know we can beat them though… but anything can happen.
I think Arsene will play a somewhat weakened team but I think he will need to play Ade alongside someone effective like Eduardo or RvP if he is fit. Personally I would rather like to see “the fox in the box” against Man Ure. Our boys will need to be motivated to win this one. Clichy will need to be on top of his game defensively to hold Ronaldo as good as he is I am not sure if he can do that. It is games like this when I appreciate Cashley, I have never seen a game where he hasn’t kept Ronaldo in check for the vast majority of the game for Chelsea or Arsenal.
Chicago you go it spot on, the psychological advantage they would have if they beat us in the FA could have an effect on the result in the PL. But don’t worry the Spuds result comes once in a blue moon so no chance of them overrunning us.
January 28th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
By the way it is quite interesting how DannyT seems to have gone underground since that post blatantly SUGGESTING ALL AMERICANS ARE STUPID. Danny you need to chill with all that ignorant stuff, like calling Reyes a dumb Gypsy…. I hope Stag is rubbing his hands with glee now all the snipers are out. What goes around comes around…
Watch your back Fred! Naah I’m just having a bit of fun with you all.
January 28th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/africa/7212930.stm
Damn, i thought some of those clubs would insist on checking the players’ passports.
January 28th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
But Arthur, Reyes IS a gypsy, he was born a Romany. Seems to be plenty of evidence that he’s dumb too.
If it caused offence I do apologise for saying only an American would not know the difference between South Africa and Africa. I should have said only a cretin like Stag wouldn’t know the difference. As a European, it is hard to take American education seriously, especially when they banned “French Fries” after France pulled out of supporting the Iraq war. America has been the laughing stock of Europe ever since.
January 28th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
It’s going to be really interesting to see how ManU cope with Ade/Dudu – if they play that is.
This Arsenal are certainly emerging as a different threat to the previous version. We’ve never had a real centre-forward under Wenger – now we have with Adebayor. And we never had a true goal poacher – and now we have with Dudu. It almost looks the classical twosome. And yet it is all wrapped up within the confines of Wengerball – quite the delicious prospect.
Re the draw, I kinda think we gotta be big enough to take on whoever we get. Be it AC Milan or ManU. These are the big games that we want. The trick is for Wenger to get the team selection right. I don’t think he did with Spurs, hopefully he will this time.
January 28th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
@25:
Your apology is followed by the statement that “it is hard to take American education seriously…”
Thus, it is hard to take your apology seriously.
You’ve painted your self-portrait quite nicely by painting Americans with a big, broad brush.
Nice job.
January 28th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
#23 “ALL AMERICANS ARE STUPID” arthur3sheds
No really! You mean that isn’t true?
Okay, not all Americans are stupid but why does it have to be so many.
Well at least Americans make good beer :}~ doh beeeeeer
#25 DannyT
While I might agree with you on Reyes being at least a Mama’s boy, as a European myself I’ve met a plenty of Neanderthals living there and I’ve been from the furthest northern fjords to islands where the palm leafs float in from Libya and I don’t mean my Labia.
January 28th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
To make a point I forgot to add this to my above post.
The fool thinks he’s wise but the wise mans knows he’s a fool.
January 29th, 2008 at 1:33 am
Its a sports forum. There’s enough pointless politics in the world anyway..there’s no need to blab on that over here. there are plenty of forums to do that.
As for the draw..juicy juicy draw. I’d say we rest up the guys a week before and play the best squad two games running. It could (not will) be detrimental.
January 29th, 2008 at 1:33 am
Its a sports forum. There’s enough pointless politics in the world anyway..there’s no need to blab on that over here. there are plenty of forums to do that.
As for the draw..juicy juicy draw. I’d say we rest up the guys a week before and play the best squad two games running. It could (not will) be detrimental if we lose to the c&^%$.
January 29th, 2008 at 1:55 am
Personally, I believe AW’s love/hate affair with Fergie alone will be more than enough to drive both men putting their strongest squad in the game.
This is the Wenger Vs Ferguson “derby”.
as with the fans, forget about the this or that competition is not “important” talks. I thought Carling Cup was a meaningless cup for many fans as well, yet looking at the response following our defeat to Spurs, it surely didn’t feel that way. I can see another 100+ comments post coming if we lose to Man U in the FA Cup.
kinda funny anyway if we look at the postmatch response lately:
Fulham Vs Arsenal (we won) 72 comments
Spurs Vs Arsenal (we lost) 152 comments
Arsenal Vs Newcastle (we won) 38 comments
that sums it up.
January 29th, 2008 at 2:20 am
I’ve got to agree with Andex @33.
sadly you hit the nail right on the head. I often felt there was hardly anyone to discuss a good arsenal win with on this site, whereas after a loss there seems to be so much more “action”. Not sure what that exactly says about some of the “fans” on this site.
January 29th, 2008 at 3:34 am
totally off the subject, but how was the dinner with Danny in DC. Was hoping to make it , seeing i was going to be in DC for the weekend, but my wife changed my plane ticket. Havent seen a post about the dinner, but hope we had a good showing and everyone had a good time. Seeing as Danny is a scout and representative of the club in the US, would love to see us meeting with him again in the future. Would also be great to try and meet with other former Arsenal players in the US. FC Dallas’s coach is the only one that comes to mind, off hand
January 29th, 2008 at 3:55 am
LOL @ 25, Is that true? bizarre!
Maybe I got the wrong end of the stick concerning your Reyes comment. In England Gypsy prejudice seems to be allowed but if you said dumb African, or dumb Asian it would clearly be construed as offensive as it should be.
@ 33 & 34, Andez always makes good points and is usually right. But you guys should know this is the way of the world. I didn’t comment on the Spuds thread, too busy reading it, however Arsenal fans take wins for granted. To lose is a big deal especially by that scoreline to the Spuds of all people. Bad news make big headlines rarely does anything good become high profile, it has to be something exceptional like man landing on the moon.
Don’t be dissapointed with the fans, they are just as fanatical as me and you but they’re only human.
January 29th, 2008 at 5:08 am
KC Gooner, it’s been a long time bro.
I’m not worried about this tie. Man Utd are good but so are we. It should be a good match. Art, I hear your concern about who will Wenger play along side Adebyaor but I think Wenger will opt to play a 4-5-1. I hope not but I would bet money on that formation, especially at Old Trafford. The thing is neither one of their CB’s can cope with Adebayor one-on-one, but if Ade’s got no help it will be tough for him.
I’m also not in favor of a replay so we need to play to win. If we lose then so be it. I’d like to see Wenger tell the boys to go out and have fun; to think of this game as a training session for the Milan game and completely take the pressure off of them. The onus is on United to win at home. We’ve got bigger fish to fry in Milan.
I’m also not worried about the Clichy/Ronaldo match-up. Ronaldo may be a great player but he hasn’t bothered Clichy last season or this one. I was telling someone the other day that Ronaldo is more of a striker than a midfielder. With that, he has the lattitude to go where ever he deems he can pose a threat and he does that with great effect. If he looks to go at Clichy then he won’t make a strong impact. If he’s smart, he’ll look to avoid Clichy as much as he can. Tevez, Rooney, and set plays are a bigger threat.
Also, Anderson is really coming into his own. He’s completely moved Carrick out of the side and has deputised for Scholes very well. I really liked him in Portugal. He was more of a flair player there but he’s shown he can do the defensive duties as well. He’s a great signing for them.
January 29th, 2008 at 5:52 am
yeah anderson has added a lot to them, they have hardly missed scholes cause of him. he seems better defensively than scholes as well. He’s developing into a really good player.
I’d be worried about rooney, he always seems to score against us.
January 29th, 2008 at 8:53 am
Seems like Diaby is being offered a new deal by the club and is intent on staying on with Arsenal. Personally, I am happy with this piece of news. I have always rated this guy as a potential star. Had predicted this season to be a breakout season for him which unfortunately has not happened yet. But i’m sure that in time this guy will come really good. Would like to see him play more often in the central midfield role.
Hoping for a good league match against Newcastle today…..planning to stay awake till 3 A.M
Cheers,
Wayne
January 29th, 2008 at 9:11 am
Juve sign Sissoko for 8.2M GBP. We sold Diarra for 5.5M GBP. Are Juve still interested in Gilberto?
January 29th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Its live Wayne?? The last time there was this late game they showed some yachting at 2:00am. That was horrible.
January 29th, 2008 at 10:21 am
LDE, it’s on ESPN at 1 am.
January 29th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Great .. thanks Nip.
January 29th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
@LDE ..Yup..i hope there is no last minute change of schedules ..thankfully there is no Man Utd match at the same time.
Missed out on the Spurs match because I didn’t know they were showing it on Zee Sports…but in hindsight.it was a good thing ..can’t imagine being awake at 3 A.M only to see the Gunners losing 5-1 to spurs
January 29th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Dear Danny T,
Since you hold American opinions, and indeed intelligence, in such low regard, I cannot for the life of me understand why you come in here. The only thing that would make sense is that perhaps you feel it is your duty to lord your supposed “insights” over us. But see, even that falls apart because frankly, I haven’t seen a word of yours that I would classify as insightful. So this leaves me with the sick feeling that you are a garden variety internet troll whose life is so utterly meaningless that you seek attention by simply being a bombastic prick on message boards. Which is sad and normally I wouldn’t devote any attention to you.
But then there’s another dimension to your trolling; you seem to have some kind of nationalist xenophobia against “gypsies” and Americans and probably all other sorts of people you find objectionable because they are “stupid” and you are smart. And I just can’t stomach that sh*t. Arsenal are a diverse team with a diverse fan base; most of which I include as my brothers and sisters. And I can’t stomach people attacking my brothers and sisters because of their race, creed, or country of origin.
So, if you can’t find a way to keep your petty, small-minded, racist and nationalist comments to yourself would you please do us all a favor and please f*ck off to whatever Hitler youth bulletin board you migrated in here from. YOUR TYPE is not wanted here.
Sincerely,
the_tooth
January 29th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Only an American could overreact like that.
January 29th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
f*ck off you tiresome c*nt.
January 29th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Wonder if Bendtner will play ahead of Adebayor. It will be a test of how much faith Wenger has in Bendtner, and if he plays, how strong Bendtner is mentally after the hoopla of the last week. The way I look at the two players is that Bendtner gets progressively worse as the game goes on and Adebayor gets better. So if Arsenal want to get a goal early, which would be very useful tonight, then starting Bendtner could be a good idea. Ade can always come on after sixty minutes.
January 29th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Give some people enough rope and they’ll hang themselves.
January 29th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
take it easy lads!
there is much talk of priorities here and it remains to be seen where wenger’s lie…i think he has said the league and CL are most important.But as said already we should have the reserves to field strong teams in both the FA cup and the CL. we will get hammered if our ‘carling cup team’ shows up..no doubt we have seen there fallibility in recent times.
utd will play their strongest team(they dont rotate that much at all) and so should we.building confidence will be crucial to the milan match where i very much expect us to win.4-5-1 in the second leg could be dodgy however
lets just hope that we are still in the title race by mid-febuary and still in contention in all three remaining competitions.the knock-on effect of getting knocked out of the FA cup and CL in the space of a week last year was too much to bear and we must be happy that we still are a threat in the league at this stage.
momentum has always been crucial to wenger’s sides.we have rotated enough already this season to freshen things up and the protection of rvp,hleb,fab and rozza could be hugely beneficial.therefore play the strongest line-up necessary risking injury if one must.
January 29th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Wenger has rotated a lot recently, I think the full first team should be able to manage 3 games in a week at least 3 or 4 times per season.
January 29th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
mazza i really do not like u!
U think wengers going to rest players for this game? Last FA cup draw was pretty much first string – diaby played because rosicky was injured. U have no idea what ur talking about u muppet.
January 29th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
man utd need the following players to win:ronaldo,rooney,tevez,ferdinand,vidic,brown,evra,hargreaves
rotation in any other areas would be sufficient to at least draw (on form that is)
arsenal need everyone fit and ready bar perhaps a striker to win..diaby perhaps is capable of holding his own.
shows you utd’s strength in depth…we need our full XI to win, they might not.
that is not to say we are an inferior XI but we are in terms of squad strength
January 29th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Well against Newcastle on Saturday, Almunia, Hleb, Sagna, Van Persie, Toure, and Eboue didn’t start, Rosicky was taken off after 9 minutes. They would ALL normally start if fit and available.
So surely that proves we can beat teams comfortably without having a fully available squad.
January 29th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
it was in relation to the man utd game…we would get beaten with the team we fielded against newcastle
January 29th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
DarkmanNate:
Diaby played because Hleb was rested. Rosicky was replaced by Eduardo after seven minutes. Now fuck off you ignorant prick.
January 29th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
This forum’s degenerating..sadly. The name calling which was absent and which distinguished this from other forums has started to creep in. Hopefully its just a a flash and will die down.
January 29th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Will Kolo and Co be back from Ghana in time for this match?
January 29th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Easy, boys.
Kolo, Song, and the other Emmanuel could potentially be back for this. If Cameroon and/or Cote d’Ivoire make the final, that’ll be played on the 10th. That would give them six days to get ready at the very least.
January 29th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Woo sounds like it was getting a little heated over here. Shame I missed all the fun… LOL. Timmy T@ 45 eloquently said, but Danny did apologise about the American comment at least (well on 2nd thoughts it was lame) but that was a bit of an overreaction to associate him with Hitler bulletin boards. Live and let live let that be the end of it.
Danny I told you about the snipers, what goes around comes son… but why do have to fight fire with fire, just chill. However that was mature of you not to carry it on, if it were Mazza or Fred we would not hear the end of it for another three days… LOL
@Josh 37. You are probably right Arsene will play 4-5-1, but I hope not. I hope you are right about Clichy but I trust no one more than Cashley to deal with a one on one. However you make a good point he is like a forward therefore he will be roaming, thus I suppose he will be everyones responsibilty including Phil, shock horror. If I were Alex F I would get Ronaldo to cut in and run at him all game he is bound to crack at some stage! However I think Rio is good enough to keep Ade in his pocket all game with Vidic alongside him and Ade on his own. We would probably need goals from midfield to stand a chance. I hope Arsene will be adventurous and play a 4-4-2 or else I think it will be really difficult.