Our 2024/25 Carabao Cup campaign begins in the third round against Bolton Wanderers at Emirates Stadium on Wednesday (7.45pm UK).
We’ll be looking to improve on last season’s outing in the competition as we beat Brentford 1-0 in the third round before losing 3-1 away to West Ham United.
It’s League One opposition for us on Wednesday with the visit of a Bolton side who sit 18th in the third tier with seven points from their opening six matches, most recently beating Reading 5-2 at home.
BOLTON BENEFITTING FROM CUPS
The Trotters got off to a winning start in League One this season, beating Leyton Orient 2-1 away from home before knocking Mansfield Town out of the Carabao Cup on penalties following a 1-1 draw.
In the second round, Ian Evatt's team put two past Shrewsbury Town without reply but failed to win league games against Wrexham, Charlton Athletic, Exeter City and Huddersfield Town during August and September.
The Bristol Street Motors Trophy has also reaped more rewards for the Lancashire side so far, as they got a 3-2 victory at Barrow.
WHAT THE MANAGERS SAY
Arteta: “We want to win the game. We have to start with the first game. We have to understand what is the best team, the strongest team that we can put out to perform in the way that we need to to be better than Bolton and beat them.
“In terms of trophies, it’s a success only if you win it. How you measure success or associate that word, we can have a much deeper conversation. But we are here to win, we are here to win the big competitions and the ones people consider not that big. That’s our duty.”
Evatt: “It's something we can all enjoy off the back of a good performance on Saturday. We can go there with the pressure off and just know this is as tough as it gets and go there humble enough to know that there is zero expectation and no-one thinks we've got a cat in hell’s chance.
“But what we can do is go and learn about what it takes to be either a manager or a player at that level. We will go there and give it our best shot and see where that takes us. We are going to do our best to be competitive and hopefully we can make it an enjoyable experience, not just for us but for our supporters who are going down in their numbers again.”
TEAM NEWS
Arteta will not be able to select Neto, who is cup tied, or Leandro Trossard, who is serving a one-game suspension following his dismissal against Manchester City on Sunday.
As for injuries, we know he’ll be without Martin Odegaard (ankle), Mikel Merino (shoulder), Oleksandr Zinchenko (calf), Takehiro Tomiyasu (knee) and Kieran Tierney (hamstring).
As for Bolton, with one eye on their trip to Crawley Town this Saturday, Evatt could be tempted to make changes. “Everybody will want to play, I have no doubt about that,” he said. “But we know what's more important. Again, that's no disrespect to the competition or Arsenal but Crawley on Saturday is a more important game for us.
“There will be some rotation. We need energy. We are at our best when we play with energy and we saw that, in particular in the first half on Saturday, that we're hard to stop when we play with that energy intensity and aggression.”
TALKING TACTICS
Adrian Clarke, writing in the matchday programme: Bolton have set up in a 3-4-2-1 this season, which is no surprise as right across Evatt’s four years at the helm he has almost exclusively deployed a three-man rearguard with wing-backs.
At League 1 level the Trotters are known for their fluid, possession-based football. They like to pass out from the goalkeeper, and you will often see their wide centre-backs pushing forward to join in with build-up play inside opposition territory.
With Evatt’s players all comfortable on the ball they are encouraged to keep their passing short, and to move the ball through the thirds. Last term they ranked second for the highest number of short passes in their division. Most of their longer passes are switches of play, rather than hitting it direct from back to front.
They will not expect to have as much of the ball this evening, but in the third tier Bolton’s approach is built around controlling matches, and sustaining periods of pressure inside the opposition half.
FACTS AND STATS
We will host Bolton in any competition for the first time since October 2011, when we won 2-1 in a League Cup fourth round tie.
Bolton have won just one of their last 23 away games against us (D4 L18), winning 3-1 at Highbury in a FA Cup fourth round replay in February 1994 under future Gunners manager Bruce Rioch.
We have progressed through each of our last 10 League Cup ties against lower league opposition, since a 3-0 loss to Championship side Sheffield Wednesday in the 2015/16 fourth round.
Bolton have reached the third round of the League Cup for the first time since 2017/18, when they lost 3-0 to West Ham United – they last reached the fourth round in 2011/12.
MATCH OFFICIALS
Josh Smith has been appointed to take charge of Wednesday’s game. He has officiated seven fixtures so far this season, handing out 27 yellow cards in the process, as well as one red card for Cardiff City’s Joel Bagan last weekend.
The last time Smith saw over an Arsenal game was for our 2-1 defeat away to Fulham in the Premier League last season.
VAR will not be in use for Wednesday’s fixture.
Referee: Josh Smith
Assistants: Sam Lewis and Alex James
Fourth official: Ben Toner
TROTTERS' PREVIOUS TRIPS
You have to go back just under 13 years to when Bolton last visited Emirates Stadium, which was also in the League Cup under the lights.
Former young Gunner Fabrice Muamba gave Wanderers the lead that night early in the second half, but we responded with a quick double from Andrey Arshavin and Park Chu-young to secure a 2-1 win, taking us through to the quarter-finals.
The last time we met was actually four months later for a 0-0 draw in the Premier League at Reebok Stadium, in what would prove to be Bolton's final season in the top-flight.
LIVE COVERAGE
Our new matchday show is live an hour before kick-off on Arsenal.com and the official app, hosted by Nicole Holliday and Theo Walcott!
They'll be joined by former club captain and current Academy Manager Per Mertesacker to talk about his cup memories and our Young Gunners, and Rizzle Kicks also drop by to talk about reuniting and how Arsenal played a role in them becoming a group.
Our studio audience will attempt to Outwit Walcott as they participate in a head-to-head quiz about our former number 14's career, while you can win too by sending in a question to Theo using #LiveFromN5 on X and if, he hasn't been asked before, you could win some brand-new Gunners gear.
We put our Question of the Day to our first-team squad and supporters at Emirates Stadium, before the main event as live commentary of the game comes from Dan Roebuck and Adrian Clarke. Make sure you tune in!
You can also find out which broadcasters are showing the action live wherever you are in the world.
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