“Disappointed” – These Arsenal fans react as highly touted youngster doesn’t get his first start vs Leicester City | OneFootball

The Carabao Cup is a tough balancing act for managers of the bigger teams, because they really have to try hard to convince everyone that they actually care about the competition.

That changes if they reach the semi final and there’s a chance of silverware, but you often get the impression that playing the fringe players and suffering an unfortunate defeat in the early rounds is what they really aim for.

Arsenal’s starting XI tonight does mainly feature the fringe players, although a lot of the fans would’ve been hoping for William Saliba to get his first start of the club:

The Frenchman was highly impressive during his loan spell at St Etienne last season, so there’s plenty of hope that he will form a long term partnership with Gabriel at the heart of the defence.

He’s yet to play in a completive game for Arsenal and he might still make his debut from the bench, but plenty of fans were hoping to see him from the start this evening:

It’s interesting to see some of the comments about Ozil not even getting into the squad, so presumably that’s just further confirmation that Arteta doesn’t want him.