Song misses out through suspension. Denilson is out with a back problem, and Kolo has a “groin problem” (code for “will soon be leaving the club so we won’t cup-tie him”)

A new year begins, and so does our thirteenth attempt at the FA Cup under Arsene Wenger. If we don’t win it this season then it will be the longest we have gone without winning the oldest club competition in the world under Arsene’s tutelage, since we went three seasons without between 1999 and 2002. With last seasons final being between Portsmouth and Cardiff City, it shows that it is still possible for anyone to win it. We’ve shown this season that, even with the squad in it’s current state, we’re capable of beating anyone in this country on our day, and as such The FA Cup should be seen as a genuine chance of silverware. It was the last silverware we won, four seasons ago, and the longer we go without winning anything, the more impatient certain sections of our support will get. It would be nice to look like we had a chance of winning it. We haven’t made it further than the fifth round since 2005.

We sort of sacrificed The FA Cup last season in prioritising the league and Champions League, believing we had a chance of winning those competitions that would be jeopardised by playing a full team in the domestic cups, and we ended up getting humiliated at Old Trafford. Well there’s certainly no chance of us winning the league this season, and the Champions League doesn’t restart until after the fifth round of The FA Cup, so we may as well focus on it as our only chance of winning anything. Wenger’s record of having never lost to lower league opposition in domestic competition went earlier this season with our Carling Cup defeat at Burnley, but you’d have to think Plymouth should be a relatively straight forward passage to the fourth round. But we need to take the cup seriously this year. Plymouth are fifteenth in The Championship and have only won one of their last eight games, losing five.

Team News

Song misses out through suspension. Denilson is out with a back problem, and Kolo has a “groin problem” (code for “will soon be leaving the club so we won’t cup-tie him”). There’s no real need for resting or rotation, the whole squad has had a weeks rest and there is only one mid-week game in January. Wenger has said he intends to take the FA Cup seriously, so we can expect a relatively strong team. Ramsey will be involved, but other than that it’ll be the first team. This game is too soon for Eduardo, he could be involved later in the month. While I can understand playing a strong team if we want to win the FA Cup this season, what’s wrong with players like Wilshere and Vela playing in a game like this against Championship opposition? If the team around them is first choice it should be enough to win, and given that in the last Premiership game Eboue started on the right and Bendtner played both up front and on the left wing, it’s obvious Wilshere and Vela aren’t going to get any playing time in the league bar an injury crisis of biblical proportions.

Subs: Mannone, Silvestre, Gibbs, Wilshere, Randall, Vela, Bendtner.

Defender David McNamee and Simon Walton are suspended. Striker Paul Gallagher and winger Craig Noone may play after an ankle problem and a virus respectively.