With his eyes fixed on the prize, Mikel Arteta blinked at the worst possible moment. The man of unbending standards, of fierce and often grimly pragmatic commitment to excellence, allowed himself to be swayed by sentiment. While he claimed to have unconditional trust in Kepa Arrizabalaga, handing his second-choice goalkeeper the chance to atone for his two fateful errors in this fixture, that faith felt sorely misplaced as he flapped horribly to gift Manchester City their opening goal and send Arsenal down a spiral of self-doubt from which they never escaped. Much like the players reduced to chasing shadows, he looked as if he had seen a ghost.
For 25 minutes, Arsenal appeared to forget their very identity, so passive and so daunted by the stakes that they developed a pathological aversion to attack. City could regather and reignite almost at will, to the point where another Kepa implosion became frankly inevitable. He had already looked skittish, earning a yellow card by pushing Jérémy Doku wide when the Belgian was not even in a clear goalscoring position, and then losing his composure altogether, spilling what should have been a simple stop from Rayan Cherki to free Nico O’Reilly to head into an empty net. Astonishingly, for a third time, he became the Carabao Cup final scapegoat.
But the blame, ultimately, rests with Arteta. He knew all about Kepa’s inglorious history on this stage for Chelsea, how he had missed the decisive penalty against Liverpool in 2022 and how he had refused to be substituted by Maurizio Sarri during defeat by City in 2019. Affording him the chance of absolution for Arsenal was the compassionate move, but hardly the correct one as his team sought to throw off their penchant for self-sabotage. Why on earth, in a final that could have kindled the quest for an unprecedented quadruple, did the manager leave the world-class David Raya on the bench? It was a gesture of touching loyalty to the figure entrusted throughout this competition. It was not, though, the mark of an uncompromising winner.
When you have the chance to win your first trophy for six years, there is no excuse for second-guessing yourself, or for settling for second-best anywhere on the pitch. Raya has been unrivalled for Arsenal this season, with his steadying influence a crucial factor in why Arsenal have sustained their march to glory for so long. Kepa, by contrast, is notoriously gaffe-prone, and rarely more so than when there is silverware on the line. The sight of him squabbling with Sarri here at Wembley seven years ago, insisting that he kept his place for a penalty shoot-out that his side would go on to lose, is still burned into the retinas of Chelsea fans. Now, the image of him flailing desperately at thin air threatens to stalk Arsenal’s nightmares.
Yes, there is precedent for negotiating a match of this magnitude with a stand-in goalkeeper. After all, City managed it themselves here with James Trafford. Except Trafford is a far more accomplished alternative than Kepa, as Arteta would discover to his cost. And yet it was far from the manager’s only miscalculation on a day when his team’s reputation for resilience collapsed. He looked oddly frozen as he surveyed City’s second-half bombardment, finding the spectacle so harrowing that he showed little power to react. By the time he made a positive substitution, bringing on Riccardo Calafiori for the hapless Piero Hincapié, Arsenal were 2-0 down. He did nothing about Martín Zubimendi, monstered in midfield by Rodri.
“Boring, boring Arsenal,” the City fans crowed. While Arteta has worn such accusations as a badge of honour, they carried greater cogency this time. The reality is that Arsenal were hopelessly one-dimensional in this contest, showing so little ambition after half-time that they barely pushed City back beyond the halfway line. It was just unimaginative bus-parking, as if they believed they could weather the surge and punish City with a crisp counter-punch. Arteta made zero tactical adjustments, merely gritting his teeth and hoping. By the time he finally sent Noni Madueke on in place of the ineffectual Kai Havertz, City’s substitutes were charging down the touchline to celebrate O’Reilly’s second, with Pep Guardiola in such ecstasy that he kicked the advertising hoardings.
Although this could still be a garlanded campaign for Arsenal, setbacks scarcely come more galling. The agony was etched across Arteta’s face as Guardiola jumped for joy alongside him, conscious that his mentor had outsmarted him once more. In many ways, he has outgrown his casting as the sorcerer’s apprentice, turning Arsenal back into a behemoth capable of competing on multiple fronts. But it threatens to be a long fortnight of the soul as his players depart on international duty. This was meant to be the springboard, the moment when Arsenal proved that their all-conquering credentials were no mere chimera. Instead, they flunked their first chance of four with a display so lacking in verve and enterprise that you had to check Arteta had not come disguised as José Mourinho. A blip, or a full-systems malfunction? We will find out soon enough. The only certainty is that Arsenal’s limitations, and their manager’s reluctance to be ruthless, have been exposed in the most gruesome way.