The aim is now to wrap up the Premiership as soon as possible, to clear the decks for CL. So first up Arsenal, which is certainly not a gimme. Had they scored with their early chance it could have very different. Yes we are the better team but this is no guarantee of victory or even a draw, as shown at Wigan, and the stats show that teams winning the League Cup often struggle in the League afterwards.
I trust Pep to choose the best team for the job in all the circumstances, but is there anything else that can be done?
In another thread it was stated that Pep does not give a pre-match team talk and if that’s true, I wonder why not. Certainly his half time talk seemed to make a difference on Sunday. Does anybody know for sure what happens pre-match?