‘Deserves a start on the weekend’: Arsenal fans hail £16m ‘warrior’ in Carabao Cup win over Brentford

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Arsenal delivered a solid performance to overcome Brentford in the third round of the Carabao Cup on Wednesday night.

The Gunners took the lead early on in the match in West London as Reiss Nelson finished coolly in the eighth minute.

A much-changed Arsenal side then held off a second-half rally from the hosts and got over the line for the fourth round.

As many predicted – and as is usually the case in the early rounds of domestic cups – Mikel Arteta made numerous changes for the match.

Only Ben White, Gabriel Magalhaes and Eddie Nketiah retained their places in the side from the North London derby.

Plenty of Arsenal fringe players got the opportunity to show what they could do, and most did themselves and the team proud.

Takehiro Tomiyasu was particularly impressive for the Gunners. The 24-year-old was making only his second start of the season.

Arteta opted to play Tomiyasu at centre-back and he did very well before shifting to his more usual right-back position in the second half.

Many Arsenal fans absolutely loved what they saw from the £16million man, praising him on X:

Tomiyasu’s display will no doubt give Arteta a selection headache.

And the Arsenal boss will no doubt be buzzing over this. After all, that’s what strength in depth is about.

Up next for the Gunners is Bournemouth away in the Premier League on Saturday afternoon.