Mikel Arteta handed incentive to name strong Arsenal team in Carabao Cup tie after Man City exit

Arsenal's win over Brentford last month was huge for so many reasons as Wednesday night's Carabao Cup tie against West Ham United comes into focus.

As was the case for the round three clash, the big debate will be how serious the Gunners should be taking the domestic cup competition this season. After all, it can be argued they have 'bigger fish to fry' in terms of the Premier League and the UEFA Champions League.

Having said that, the Arsenal manager is certainly up for a cup run. Well, that's what the line-up against Brentford indicated; whilst the likes of Bukayo Saka, William Saliba and Declan Rice were given the night off, Gabriel Magalhaes, Ben White, Kai Havertz and Aaron Ramsdale, who began the season as the first-choice goalkeeper, all started.

Historically the third round of the League Cup is often where the north London outfit rotate heavily and blood a few promising youngsters. Granted that approach was somewhat in place against the Bees with Charles Sagoe JR making his senior debut, but the changes felt more to give players much-needed minutes rather than hand fringe players an opportunity.

And it was the performances of Takehiro Tomiyasu, Jakub Kiwior, Emile Smith Rowe and match-winner Reiss Nelson that reinforced the belief that Arteta has a squad that can challenge on all fronts: «Really happy. In this competition you are in or out,» he said in the post-match press conference. «We are in. Two very different halves. The first half we had a lot of control, scored the goal and had some chances to put the game away. We didn’t.

»Second half, they had a more aggressive approach and we struggled to control the ball and we were too direct and then it becomes a difficult game because there are a lot of duels,