Two second string sides met and it was the home side that triumphed, but that fails to tell the story as the Arsenal youngsters lived up to their Carling Cup reputation with a sparkling display against Liverpool.

Samir Nasri started his first game for Arsenal in 2009/10 after beaking his leg in preseason, but the small shock inclusion of the night was defensive midfielder Craig Eastmond. Those who follow the youth team may have been expecting Francis Coquelin to deputise, myself included, so a few eyes were on the kid to see what he could do.

The young Englishman did not dissapoint, with a slithery ability to wriggle out of tight spots with ease, feisty little tackles and good passing. But the opening exchanges belonged to Liverpool who kept the Arsenal defence busy for the first 10 minutes.

But Arsenal started to press afterwards and were rewarded by a goal that will live long in Fran Merida’s memory. Picking the ball from the right flank, he strafed towards the box before unleashing a belter towards goal, smacking the upright on the way in. A peach of a goal to open his account, it comes right after Wenger was backing the lad to make a press for the first team. Fabulous.

Liverpool, however, were the equal of Arsenal in more ways than one. Despite the goal, no team had really stood out as superior yet, and so it proved when the left back Insua unleashed God’s gift to goalscoring with what will probably be the goal of the tournament.

The ball bobbled around Arsenal’s right flank before bouncing in front of Insua, who hit the ball as it floated in front of him, and sailed quite brilliantly into the top quadrant of the goal. Fabianski cannot be faulted as he hadn’t strayed too far off his line, it was just one of those goals of Youtube-ish quality.

But Aaron Ramsey saw to it that Arsenal would gain the ascendancy in the first half. Despite no goals coming, he did the best impression of a certain Cesc Fabregas seen since a certain Cesc Fabregas did an impression of Cesc Fabregas. The Welshman dominated midfield with some delightful passing and his partnership with Nasri genuinely worked.

The decisive goal came early in the second half when Merida poked the ball to Bendtner in the box, who juggled between some stubborn feet before rifling the ball into the roof of the net from the left. It was reminiscent of the way van Persie controlled Song’s pass against Birmingham and the result here was no different. A good goal from Arsenal’s Dane who put in a lot of graft in his spell as centre forward.

The remainder of the match, on the balance of things, seemed to go Arsenal’s way. We’ve been complaining lately of how the club hasn’t killed off games we should have won, but the young gunners did that tonight.

Liverpool surged late on but Arsenal fended it off well, despite shouts for handball against Senderos late on. Playing the ball into corners to eat up time is something I haven’t seen from Arsenal in a while, so well done there.

Fabianski – 7: Dealt with crosses very well today and was only beaten by a magnificent goal. Had a few hairy moments that are typical of a goalie making a long-awaited appearance, but to me, looks good enough to play this weekend against Spurs.
Gilbert – 7: Had a great game on the flank, keeping Babel mostly at bay, though he got beaten once or twice late on into the match. Has a stern tackle.
Senderos – 7: Struck a good partnership with Silvestre and had a good game. Attacked the man with the ball while his partner did the mopping-up job, and for much of the match it proved a solid obstacle for Liverpool. Handballed Voronin’s shot late on, but it was ball to hand, and would have been a cruel penalty.
Silvestre – 8: Like him or not, you can’t say he didn’t have a good game today. His sliding was perfectly timed the whole match and got us out of jail once or twice. Only blight on his game came early in the first half when he failed to track back as Liverpool broke, but managed to get away with that.
Gibbs – 8: Fantastic showing from the left back who didn’t let a thing past him today. His crossing is much better than Clichy’s and while not as fast, he seems to have his head in the right place. Competition for this spot is very high at the moment.
Eastmond – 7: A solid debut from one of the more unheralded players of the youth team. Snapped into tackles very neatly, got out of tight areas well and while he gave the ball away a few times, he distributed the ball well enough and showed a bit of promise.
Ramsey – 8.5: My man of the match, tonight – dominated the centre circle and his vision for finding a pass can certainly compete with Cesc Fabregas’ talents. That says a hell of a lot. A top performance from Aaron that only lacked a few testers on goal.
Nasri – 7.5: Superb return to the Arsenal first team action from Nasri. Dribbled with real menace at Liverpool’s backline and was really tough to handle during the match. More to come from him if he can stay fit.
Merida – 8: His best performance in an Arsenal shirt so far, and that’s not just because of the goal. Got into great positions, was a real nuisance to Liverpool’s defenders and managed to ping-pong the ball to Bendtner to get an assist. Is this the start of good things for Fran? We can only hope.
Eduardo – 7: Quiet for almost all of the first half, displayed a vast improvement in the second. Got involved much more and nearly scored a third from a fantastic Merida ball, and generally held the ball up pretty well.
Bendtner – 7.5: Miscontrolled the ball once or twice but that’s mostly because he got some pretty difficult passes to deal with. That’s what a lone centre forward has to do and the big Dane did it well. Deserved his goal for persevering and made a good return to the side.
SUBS: Randall – 6: Came on for Eastmond on 75′ and put in a no-fuss performance.
Watt – 6: Caused a bit of trouble down the left flank as Eduardo switched to the centre. Lame as it is, hearing the commentator say ‘Watt’ all the time brings about a smile, every time.
Coquelin -N/A: Came on for Merida late on and didn’t have time to really show his stuff.

So as you can see, I couldn’t spot a bad performance tonight. Credit must go to Liverpool who were not embarrassed or outplayed by any means, but the right team won, I feel.

What really struck me today is that this young team still hassles and harries opponents off the ball exactly like the first team did early on in the season. The first team seem to have taken their foot off the gas a bit in that regard and that correlates with the results waning. Tonight, we saw a return to that committed type of football and it paid dividends in the end.

While there were some doubts over whether Merida could step up and actually realise his potential for the first team, tonight gave the biggest indication that he has a spot in the side, if for the moment, as fourth or fifth choice in midfield. But that bellies the fact there is a lot of depth in certain parts of the team and it does bode well for the season.

It’s also unusual for a player to come back from a long injury and then play the whole 90 minutes on his first game back, but that’s exactly what Nasri has done and it does suggest he’s very much in contention for the Spurs game on Saturday.

Credit must also go to Senderos and especially Silvestre. The big Swiss has had a tough time during his Arsenal career but he played with some authority and has a pretty good partnership with Silvestre, at least at this level. Silvestre himself saved our skins a number of times with some excellent sliding tackles. He’s not the most popular player in the side, we all know that, but credit must go to an assured performance from Mikael.

Good to have a win on the books and hopefully this goes some way to boosting Arsenal ahead of the North London derby. I seriously cannot wait for that match. More tomorrow, and thank you as always for reading.

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Filed under: Arsenal