Arsenal v Manchester City: Carabao Cup final – live | Carabao Cup
Key events
39 min “Per your point ‘if he’d bought either of [Ekitike/Sesko] and they’d stayed fit’,” says Mark Childs, “I think that’s the main strength of Arsenal’s transfer approach. It no longer seems like a crisis if Odegaard/Saka/Rice/Havertz picks up an injury: they now have a strong enough squad and a rotation system that presumably reduces injuries, then provides cover for any missing players. As a United fan who has had to watch the randomness of our transfer approach, I can only admire Arsenal’s decision to pick a strategy and stick with it.”
I think they’d be pretty stuck without Rice, and the only reason they might be fine without Saka is he’s having a relatively poor season. If you go through the list of Premier League champions, you’ll see that almost all of them have elite attackers, and though I’m not saying Arsenal can’t win the title without them, it’d be an outlier. I also think Arteta has played his key men a lot for someone who has such a deep squad – the away game against Inter, for example.
38 min The corner is easily cleared; so far, City are dealing with Arsenal’s dead-ball threat pretty comfortably, though it only takes one to change everything.
37 min Saka rolls the ball down the line, hoping to draw a tackle from O’Reilly, who stays patient before blocking the cross; corner to Arsenal. There’ll now be a 17-minute break as the players position themselves then wrestle each other.
35 min Arsenal are doubling and tripling up on Doku, who Arteta must see as City’s main threat. I don’t know if that’s leaving Hincapie isolated against Semenyo, but it can’t be helping; I’d be interested to see the two wingers swap occasionally, which might unbalance Arsenal’s defensive plan.
33 min But Arsenal sustain the attack, Gabriel flicking on a long ball and Gyokeres is in! He wants too long, though, so Ake, who was caught out initially, gets back at him to make a leaping tackle. So far, this is extremely poor fare.
31 min Calafiori is on the touchline stretching, which may or may not be because Arteta is contemplating a change. Gyokeres and Khusanov then pursue a long ball, the latter ploughing through the former and earning a yellow card for his trouble. He didn’t leave anything out of that challenge, and Rice will now laser in another free-kick, headed clear by Nunes.
29 min The corner comes to nothing, then Bernardo avoids a card for a shove. He’s perhaps the most articulate snide in the league – and what a player.
28 min City are now dominating possession, though without threatening. Semenyo looks to have Hincapie and, as I type, he he slows him down, feints the cross, and nashes away on the outside, his cross blocked behind for a corner. I’d not be surprised to see Calafiori on at half-time.
25 min “To be fair, I don’t think it was as clear then as it is now that Ekitike was the liveliest of the Ekitike/Sesko/Gyökeres mid-price strikers,” says Julia Riches. “Personally, I wish we had bought Kvaratskhelia in the 2025 January window. What I am really glad of is that we didn’t sell Martinelli and Trossard, who have been immense and undersung for us this season.”
I disagree with that – Gyokeres was clearly the least talented of the three. Perhaps Arteta wanted that profile as an option, but if he’d bought either of the other two and they’d stayed fit, Arsenal would be in a better position than they are.
23 min City look to attack down the left touchline, Arteta dancing down it to get out of the way. He’s trying much harder to affect calm this season, but his constant proximity to the action bespeaks his real state of mind. At some point, I’d not be surprised if he properly gets in the way of an opposition attack – Gareth Bale could never have done this against Arsenal.
21 min I’ve not seen many, if any defender with recovery-pace that compares to Khusanov. We see it here, as he slides in on Havertz, and if the rest of his game matures, he has the raw materials to become a very serious centre-back.
20 min Excellent from Semenyo, who isolates Hincapie and throws a lollipop inside before dashing outside, hammering over a cross that pleads to be finished … but a flying Haaland can’t quite introduce brow to ball.
19 min Saka spins Cherki adroitly, in the process raking studs down heel; he’ll be fine, but we’ve barely seen him in the game thus far.
18 min Arsenal win another free-kick, maybe 35 yards out, out on the right, so the big men go forward and Rice prepares to fizz over a outswinger like he’s Jonny Wilkinson … and Haaland heads clear.
16 min Hincapie leaps into a tackle, lands without making contact with Khusanov, then makes contact with Khusanov, studs to foot, and is booked – I imagine for the first part, though it caused no damage.
15 min “I’m an Arsenal fan,” says Nathan Brown, “and I also thought Arsenal needed a couple of definitive attackers this going into the start of the season. A lot of us were disappointed and underwhelmed by raising the floor of the squad but not the ceiling. You’re basically describing Liverpool’s summer transfer policy – buying Isak, Ekitike and Wirtz. However the depth has come in handy at times over the season and now we go into the last batch of games with a full squad most of whom have had a decent volume of game-time. Seems like the results speak for themselves.”
I’m not sure about that. Liverpool didn’t strengthen where they were weak, and Isak has barelyt been fit. Had Arsenal bought Ekitike, they’d be further ahead, in mine.
13 min Flat, to the near post … and headed away. Saka can do much better than that, but Arsenal win a throw deep inside the City half, Rice to hurl in … and again, City clear.
11 min O’Reilly naively fouls Saka in the inside-right channel, 30 yards from goal, meaning Rice can now swerve in a free-kick … which O’Reilly heads away. But Arsenal have them boxed and Bernardo can’t prevent the ball going behind for a corner, Saka to take it.
10 min Now City probe, Bernardo and Rodri on the ball just outside the box. The latter digs out a cross seeking Haaland, who’s put himself on Saliba – perhaps to avoid the more powerful Gabriel – but the defender does enough.
9 min “Look at those subs’ benches, writes Chris in Corfu. “Any one of those subs would walk into virtually any Premier League team.”
These are two very well supported managers. Arsenal, I think, lack a bit of transcendental quality, while City aren’t sure what they’re trying to be.
7 min I’s Arsenal making the early running and Rice pokes a pass across the face of the box to Zubimendi, playing further forward as we thought he might. Instantly, he turns around the corner and in behind, lovely vision and weight! Havertz is in! But he takes a millisecond too long, so Trafford gets out and up in his coupon to block the low shot, then saves again when Saka hits the follow-up. That’s excellent keeping.
5 min White lofts down the line and into space, Ake nervously waving a foot at it and missing. That allows Gyokeres to power into the channel, exactly the thing he does best, but when he reaches the line, his cut-back is intercepted.
3 min We see Eze sat on the bench and he looks pretty nauseous. He’s worked so hard to learn Arteta’s pressing system and adapt to playing in a team looking to dominate rather than counter, so to have this reward taken away from him must feel grim. Arsenal will miss him, I think.
2 min City move the ball along the back four, looking to draw Arsenal on to them so they can spring, but it’s all a bit tight and messy so far, a ball in behind finding Gyokeres offside.
1 min Arsenal immediately press City high, defenders backing up attackers by jumping. City, on the other hand, are sitting off a little.
1 min Away we go!
I can’t help but think if Arsenal had spent the money they’ve used on various good players on one or two brilliant attackers, the title would already be theirs. I know a major reason they’re doing so well is their squad depth, but it’s rare a champion side is as prosaic going forward.
There are soldiers knocking abut the pitch, I’ve not a clue why; this is a football match, not a war. Anthem time.
How did we appraise import in football matches before they invented those flame things?
Our teams are tunnelled, which means it’s time for a succession of curiously staccato sentences of varying sense from Peter Drury. And here they come!
There are plenty of gaps in the City end and I’m not surprised. I guess some will fill up before kick-off, but the expense of travelling and paying into Wembley makes it difficult for fans.
I’m really looking forward to this game. As a contest, I’m not sure it’ll be pretty, but that’s not what brings any of us here really – what football gives us that nothing else can is its special brand of competitive, emotional intensity, and this is that and then some. The players will be feeling the weight.
Forest have won 3-0 at Spurs; it’s looking grim in N17, but West Ham’s defeat at Villa keeps them a point above the relegation zone, while Forest are now three above it.
Arteta says Eze is injured, then explains that he fully trusts Kepa, and that’s it.
Guardiola tells Sky that Dias felt something against Madrid and isn’t ready for today. I was getting to the keepers – both teams are sticking with their reserves – and he trusts James Trafford. Then, laughing, he notes that he’s selected the tallest team he could because who isn’t concerned about Arsenal’s set-pieces?
City, meanwhile, will want Doku to dart low crosses across the face of goal for Haaland and Semenyo – who’ll also be looking to complete those long carries, so many of which end with a shot and often a goal. He’ll feel he can get by Hincapie and down the side of Gabriel.
Cherki, meanwhile, will want to get on the ball and fire those low shots with much disguise and little backlift, as well and slipping passes down the sides of defenders for Haaland. He’s clever enough to elude Zubimendi, but may leave his side light on midfield numbers as he seeks to create crucial moments.
So, where is the game? Arsenal will want to get Bukayo Saka running at Nico O’Reilly. Though Timber’s superior defending has seem him usurp White, White is the better attacker and his relationship with Saka was a principal feature in the early years of the Arteta revival.
Otherwise, I’d expect to see Rice rampaging into tackles, after loose balls and in the channels – neither Bernardo nor Rodri have the legs to cover the width of the pitch, and I’d not be surprised to see Martin Zubimendi picking up spaces around the edge of the box. I’m not, though, sure what we’ll see from Havertz, who doesn’t play in midfield all that much these days. When he came through at Leverkusen, his soft feet and imagination on the ball shone through; Arsenal will hope he can conjure them space, and that he continues burnishing his impressive big-game record.
“Oh Lord, Daniel, the nostalgia!” begins Charles Antaki. “Too many guitars on stage, of course, but who (of a certain age) can resist the appeal of that lineup; soon to become hopelessly old-farty, cranky or dead, to be sure, but still just about alive. Happy, or happy-ish, days, before Dylan’s singing became completely incomprehensible, and popular music took a very different turn. It’s a museum piece, of course, but even museum pieces can get the old heart going and the foot tapping.”
The anticipatory noise the crowd makes when Dylan comes on stage is one of my favourites – and, now I come to think about it, reminds me of this League Cup final sound when the ball goes wide to Ander Herrera and everyone knows that if he puts his cross into the right place, Zlatan Ibrahimovic will do the rest.
Can Arsenal win the quadruple? It seems unlikely because it always is, and not much about this team suggests they’re good enough to do something beyond the greatest we’ve seen. On the other hand, the draws in Europe and the FA Cup have been kind, so they won’t have to win as many difficult matches as would ordinarily be the case and they are so diffocult to beat.
At Tottenham, Forest now lead 2-0; at Villa Park, Villa now lead West Ham 2-0.
Physically, the edge is with Arsenal, especially in midfield. Rodri may never recapture the power and pace which made him one of the best in his position, while Bernardo never it. They’ll look to control the tempo of the game and have the passing and smarts to do it, but it’s a tricky endeavour with Declan Rice charging about.
Guardiola, on the other hand, is still tinkering. In midweek, he left out Semenyo, presumably because it’s hard to carry two players – him and Erling Haaland – who don’t contribute loads apart from goals. He’ll hope that in Rayan Cherki and Jeremy Doku, he has enough creativity, and he may well be right – the former is a one-off who’ll be certain he can make this match all about him, while I really like how the latter has come on in the last few months. He’s so hard to read, and is making very good decisions; one on one against White, I fancy him.
Back to the teams, Arsenal’s looks more settled. They’re without a couple of regulars, but play according to the same principles in pretty much every game. They lack magic, especially in the absence of Eze, but of the two teams, they have the higher bottom level; chances are, they’ll defend properly whatever happens, so will take some beating.
Email! “I just cannot see Arsenal winning other than on penalties,” says Graham Fulcher. “No one is going to want to score the winning goal for them and then miss the Premier League run-in as a result. The last time someone scored a League Cup-winning goal for Arsenal they were dropped immediately afterwards…”
Goodness, that was a very long time ago. I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.
City, meanwhile, are without the injured Ruben Dias; Nathan Ake comes in. Otherwise, Antoine Semenyo returns, with Tijjani Reijnders dropping to the bench.
The headline news for Arsenal is that Eberechi Eze isn’t in the squad – presumably he’s injured – which is a particular shame for him, given how long it’s taken him to fully integrate, and for us, because he’s an artist with big-game pedigree. His spot goes to Kai Havertz, while at right-back, Ben White is in for the also-injured Jurrien Timber, and on the left, Pedro Hincapie is preferred to Riccardo Calafiori. Otherwise, Viktor Gyokeres continues up front, and on the left it’s Leandro Trossard not Gabriel Martinelli.
We’ll dig into those shortly, but before we do, join Rob Smyth for the second half of Spurs 0-1 Forest, probably the most important game played so far this season.
Teams!
Arsenal (4-3-3): Kepa; White, Saliba, Gabriel, Hincapie; Zubimendi, Rice, Havertz; Saka, Gyokeres, Trossard. Subs: Raya, Mosquera, Jesus, Martinelli, Norgaard, Madueke, Calafiori, Lewis-Skelly, Dowman.
Manchester City (4-3-3): Trafford; Nunes, Khusanov, Ake, O’Reilly; Rodri, Bernardo Silva, Cherki; Semenyo, Haaland, Doku. Subs: Donnarumma, Reijnders, Stones, Marmoush, Kovacic, Nico, Ait-Nouri, Savinho, Foden.
Referee: Peter Bankes (Lancashire)
Preamble
Humanity’s search for meaning is a struggle 300,000 years in the making, a succession of theories and experiments unable to fix on a reason or explanation for the lunacy that is life. We find patterns and seek stories to get nowhere, everything we are – thoughts, memories, feelings – bafflingly contained in a quivering lump of fat, water, protein, carbohydrates and salt. The reality – that we’re little more than sentient custard – is so discombobulating, it’s barely any consolation that we are, at least, seasoned.
The match we’re about to enjoy tests all of that, so full of so many potential interpretations it makes the head spin. Arsenal, without a trophy since the Covid Cup Final of 2020 and without a league title in more than two decades, desperately need to prove to themselves that they can win – all the more so given their opponents are also their rivals for that elusive pot. Should they triumph today, their nine-point advantage at the top of the table will seem insurmountable, whereas if they lose, City’s game in hand and home fixture against them might weigh heavy.
Words like “seem” and “might”, though, remind us that all this is conjecture. We indulge in it because we’ve no choice but it’s entirely feasible Arsenal lift the trophy today and win nothing else, just as it is that they lose today and win everything else, each extreme feasible and so too everything in between.
And that’s just them. City arrive at Wembley having lost their last two finals and just been knocked out of the Champions League in a peculiar tie against Real Madrid – one in which they played some excellent football yet never fully convinced, losing both legs for a multitude of good reasons. For the first time in a generation, there’s a sense that football has run away from Pep Guardiola, the brain that shaped what it looks like in the modern era no longer able to fully fathom it, never mind control its processes and outcomes. He looks tired, frustrated and maybe a little bored, his future uncertain; this could be his last season in his current job, or he may find a way to balance the competing forces of the physical and the technical, of power and possession, then go on to build yet another great team. Each extreme is feasible, so too everything in between; this is going to be something.
Kick-off: 4.30pm GMT
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