FA Cup Preview: Arsenal vs Coventry City

Another good performance from Serge Gnabry on the cards?

Our FA Cup fourth-found clash with Coventry brings with it a number of oddities — first, of course, is that we’ll be playing on Friday night for the first time in almost a decade. Take a moment if you will to commiserate with the Sky Blues’ fans, who travels and travails on the evening will be legion. I refer there to the state of affairs at Coventry, which are tumultuous to say the least.

I refer to the strife over where Coventry have to play their home matches. It’s one thing to have to travel on a Friday night for an away-match, but Coventry have been playing their home matches some 35 miles away in Northampton.

Sisu, an appropriately sinister and dodgy-sounding hedge fund, that uses money from anonymous investors, took over in 2007, ran into trouble during the 2010 financial crisis and simply stopped paying rent on Ricoh Arena.

Under Sisu, fans have seen some of the club’s best and most-promising players leave, and the club were relegated to League 1 and went into administration in 2013—incurring a 10-point penalty in the process, leaving the Sky Blues eight points off the pace for a promotion playoff-spot.

Suffice it to say, fans are a bit disgruntled at this, to the point that we should expect to see a fair amount of protesting, chanting, and placard-waving that have little to do with the action on the pitch. It’s a heart-breaking story, as the faceless, feckless, anonymous owner seems to be running a proud-club into the ground.

Despite these issues, manager Steven Pressley has worked wonders. Despite massive player movement (only six players remain from last year’s squad), he has forged a young squad into an impressive unit, this year more so than last, when we comfortably bounced them from the league cup in a 6-1 thrashing.

Last season, Coventry scored 66 goals in 46 matches; this season, 26 matches in, they’ve already scored 55. Only League 1 leaders Leyton Orient (56 goals) and Man City (63) have scored more goals. Pressley has them playing some attractive, even stylish football, and those off-the-pitch controversies have galvanized the squad and its away-fans as well.

However, the deck looks to be stacked against Coventry, not that a 6-1 shellacking is in the cards. Despite having won our last five, we’ve often struggled a bit to assert ourselves as aggressively as we really should, relying more on grit to see us through. An early goal, after failing to score any earlier than the 30th minute in those last five games, would be a welcome change of pace.

Last Three Meetings

Arsenal 6-1 Coventry City (26 Sep 2012)
Coventry 0-1 Arsenal (3 Feb 2001)
Arsenal 2-1 Coventry (16 Sep 2000)

Factfile

Arsenal and Coventry have never met in the FA Cup before.
In 71 meetings, Arsenal have won 39 times, drawn 18, and lost 14.
The last time that Coventry won at Arsenal was 14 August 1993.
Serge Gnabry made his official first-team debut against Coventry in the 6-1 win.
Olivier Giroud scored his first Arsenal goal in that same 6-1 win.

Injuries

We’ll go in with a familiar list of injuries with Diaby (knee) and Walcott (knee) out, and with Arteta (calf), Vermaelen (knee), Sanogo (back), Bendtner (ankle), and Ramsey (thigh), hoping to return in time to face Southampton on Tuesday. At the other end, Coventry may have to go without Callum Wilson, second in the squad with 14 goals scored.

Possible Starting XI

Fabianski; Monreal, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Jenksinon; Flamini, Wilshere; Cazorla, Podolski, Gnabry.

For as much solidarity and sympathy I might feel for Coventry, it’s hard to see them holding us off for long; they’ve conceded almost as much as they’ve scored—45 goals—and we’ve scored first in five of our last six matches, keeping clean sheets in four of them.

Goonersphere’s Prediction

Arsenal 3-0 Coventry