Charlie Nicholas predicts a big win for the Gunners against Norwich City in Tuesday night’s League Cup clash.
The former Arsenal forward gave his predictions to Sky Sports and believes Arsenal will win 4-1 against the Canaries, with Olivier Giroud and Theo Walcott likely to feature and get on the scoresheet.
“It will be another strong Arsenal side with a couple of youngsters in there. Arsène Wenger has the depth at his disposal to take care of these sort of games,” he said.
“There’s a little bit of momentum building and I’d expect to see Olivier Giroud and Theo Walcott pressing their claims for more time in other competitions.
“Norwich’s confidence should be high after another away win over their rivals Ipswich, but this Arsenal squad is strong enough to go and win this competition.”
Arsène Wenger has been saying similar things about the strength in depth of the current squad. In the Premier League, the Gunners need their first-choice team available.
You could see this at the weekend, when the first appearance of Alexandre Lacazette, Mesut Özil and Alexis Sanchez brought five goals for Arsenal, four more than in all the other Premier League away games this season combined.
However, in the other competitions, where the level of opposition isn’t quite as high, Arsenal have a massive number of options. Theo Walcott and Olivier Giroud are the first-choice alternatives up front, but Danny Welbeck is another when he’s back.
Alex Iwobi and youth players like Reiss Nelson, Chuba Akpom and Eddie Nketiah are just waiting for a chance in attack. All that without needing Alexis, Özil or Lacazette to play a single minute.
If three of those players come into the team raring to go and prove themselves against Norwich, maybe with a couple of more joining in from the bench, Arsenal should have no trouble.
But after the Gunners only made the breakthrough once against Doncaster Rovers, it’s not necessarily a sure thing. Nonetheless, the team have won all their League Cup and Europa League games so far, so it’s just about keeping that going.