The Game

A warm welcome to one of the most important days of our season. It might as well be just the Carling Cup but if the Carling Cup is the competition to end our six-year trophyless crisis, then I welcome it with open arms.

The game will kick-off at 16:00 in the UK and hours later we will know whether the anxious wait is over. Of course, let’s not forget the flip side to the coin, defeat. As much as we should not think about it, there is of course the possibility of failing in today’s objective and it would be interesting – in that case – to see how our players would react to such a big disappointment.

But hopefully that will not be the case as even though we are missing key elements such as Cesc and Theo, the eleven to start will be quality, the eleven to start will be hungry and the eleven to start, at the end of the day, will hopefully be Champions.

And, until you wait for kick-off, check out an interesting interview by Ray Parlour in which he confesses how he taught Thierry Henry to “rhyme slang”, a very funny anecdote which shows how special the relationship between that side was. And also, Nicklas Bendtner’s comments ahead of today’s game as he says how we has to take the game seriously.

As always, please do join the discussion in our chat room which will also be active after the full time whistle. You will be glad to know that from this season, to provide a better chat experience to our readers, users can be banned if they post offensive comments.

Streaming Links

For those who don’t know where to watch the game, maybe we can help, follow this link for streaming options. Links are updated before and during the match.

The Line-Ups

Arsenal

Szczesny, Sagna, Clichy, Djourou, Koscielny, Song, Wilshere, Rosicky, Arshavin, Nasri, Van Persie

Subs: Coming Soon

Birmingham City

Coming Soon

Subs: Coming Soon

Half-Time Thoughts and Analysis

As usual, refresh this page at the end of the first 45 minutes for the half-time thoughts and analysis. And as always, don’t forget to tune in at the end of the game for our thoughts, analysis, player ratings and match video highlights.