I hate being knocked out of the cup competitions.

For those saying “it is good, we can now concentrate on the league”, my guess is football is a TV show for you.

Winning trophies and days out. That is what football is about. And the League Cup can often throw up so cheeky different away days, and concludes with a trip to Wembley.

Due to the World Cup, we do have to fit games into to a shorter period of time, but “freeing up time” by being knocked out of the League Cup means nothing if you finish the season trophyless.

I also think it would have been a huge advantage getting through to the next round.

The last 16 of the League Cup is due to be played around the 19th of December – a week before Premier League football returns after the World Cup.

Even if you are in the “glad we are out camp”, you have to admit it would have been nice to have a competitive game to blow the cobwebs off prior to the game against West Ham.

I am not upset about the team Mikel Arteta put out. It was pretty much the team I expected.

And we looked decent, taking the lead with a fantastically worked goal. Then Karl Hein slipped coming out for the ball and it was penalty, 1-1.

We shouldn’t pile onto the young keeper. He is a talent and what happened is a once in a career incident.

At 1-1 we had the chance to win, but could not finish. Then we went 2-1 down and the heads seemed to drop.

For those saying “our squad is too weak, we need to improve it”…this is not exactly breaking news or an insightful take.

We all know that we need better cover for Thomas Partey, a new winger to provide competition to Gabriel and Bukayo Saka, and perhaps a new striker.

We may or may not make signings in January.

It will be a bit like last year where we won’t sign a player for the sake of it. A new signing will only be someone who is one of our top targets.

There is not point going for a 6th or 7th choice winger, who we do not really want, and then you don’t have the money in the summer to sign your 1st or 2nd choice.

Mykhailo Mudryk is a name we have been linked with a lot. If he is not available until the summer, I would rather wait than spend £15-20m on someone else who we do not want for the long term.

Some might say “that could cost us the title”, but realistically I do not think we will win the title this year. And would making a Lucas Perez-style signing really make a difference in the title chase.

Tomorrow, we need to bounce back strongly. Beat Wolves and go into the World Cup top of the league.

Enjoy your Friday.

Keenos