DOES IT EVEN MATTER?
I have maintained all season that the League Cup is of little interest to me as a fan, if we’d won it, no doubt I’d gas the moment as consequential, but we didn’t… and outside feeling very depressed, it’s hard for me to find the energy to be too angry about a trophy that returns a prize fund lower than the cost of turning on the lights at The Emirates for an evening.
League Cup is the Community Shield with more games. At best, it’s a confidence boost for a lagging team, at worst for Arsenal, it’ll be a drain on confidence.
My honest view? I think this win will mean more for City than it ever would have for Arsenal, and after spending some time thinking about the state of the game, I’m still not sure I’ve come away thinking City are in good shape at all.
Put the noise to one side.
Kepa gifted Man City their first shot on target when he spilled a cross like a hungover Sunday League player into the path of O’Reilly. For all their possession, with all their best firepower on show, Man City had not hit the target before that horrendous moment of cup-final-horror-keeping gave them an opening in a game that we’d had the best chance in.
Arteta wasn’t fast enough on the second goal, which saw the freshly birthday’d 21-year-old do the same thing to us again when Nunes found him unchallenged in the box. His header went unchallenged by Kepa and we all felt that if it had been Raya, he might have got to it.
Arsenal hit the post via a Calafiori half volley. We hit the bar with a really well crafted Gabi Jesus lofted header. But ultimately, playing our first progressive pass (forward, longer than 10 yards) didn’t happen until the 71st minute and that was too late.
Pep Guardiola got the better of Mikel Arteta tactically and Arsenal just couldn’t react to the incredibly aggressive press that City put on us. We had no answer. Our game plan was to play around the press, we didn’t have the passing range, the bravery, or the players to offer us technical security to get out of our own half. That felt like an Arsène Wenger game of football against Pep from 2017.
When Man City pushes up against you like that, you have to go long over the press, break their confidence, and put them in a state of half-heartedness. Arsenal just hoofed the ball back to their defenders, then had to chase them over and over again. It was draining watching it, can’t imagine what it was like to play.
We just didn’t have the guts or the specialists needed. Kepa’s kicking was a huge downgrade on Raya. Hincapie seemed to lose all confidence with his passing. Ben White was dreadful, bar booting Cherki for doing keepy-ups during play. Our midfield just looked tired and well off the pace. It was pure European hangover, which felt weird, considering we were the only team on the pitch that had progressed.
How could I criticise our forwards? No one put a ball into feet in a good position. Kai Havertz was a non-entity at 10. Trossard was the wrong winger for a game that required speed. Bukayo Saka was, once again, objectively terrible. We’ve been waiting all season for the moment he comes out of his shell… but he stayed in that bad boy like a homesick hermit crab. Gyokeres just isn’t built for games like that — he’s never going to make a moment for himself. So if you can’t service him, he will fail, and fail he did, another zero attacking contributions kind of game for him, but not really about his limited abilities.
So where can we extract some hope from a game like that?
Well, if you thought City were shite, you’ve only got yourself to blame. They’re the best funded team in the world, with the ability to buy up whoever they want, whenever they want, and they were always going to react to the loss against Madrid. City are world class, they won’t give up any trophy without a fight, and we were reminded of who they were.
That game, however we’d played, was always going to be tight. I keep hearing people say Arsenal are a fine margins team, like there’s a team in the league that isn’t fine margins. We’ve scored the most goals in the Premier League and conceded the least, and we’re 1st in the league. If we’re a fine margins team, guess what, that means everyone else is. At the very highest level of English football, games are ALWAYS going to be tight.
Man City, having one of their best games, against an Arsenal team having one of their worst… managed two shots on target.
‘Man City have better technical players’ appears to be a familiar comment… but it just doesn’t hold up for me. If they had better technicians than Arsenal, their attacking output would have been better and they wouldn’t have needed to rely on a basic bitch keeper fail.
Arsenal created the best chance of the game, we hit the post twice, and we created more chances… and that was the worst performance we’ve seen since Wolves.
Don’t read too much into it.
The only part of the day that has affected me is the ‘you gotta keep the second best keeper in the starting 11.’ Now, I don’t coach, and I’m sure a lot of coaches will have better opinions on this than me. But why do two world class coaches have hard and fast rulings on back-up keepers in moments they can win trophies? Arteta said the decision was based on what he sees in training? Give it a rest, it’s an agreement that back up keepers get the domestic cups. Kepa isn’t doing better than Raya at anything.
Here’s the thing… we all know why Kepa is a number two, it’s because he has brainfart mode wired into his DNA. That mistake wasn’t a shock, we’ve seen it too many times over the past decade. He does things like that. The game might still have ended in a loss, but it’s hard not to come away from that afternoon wondering if ‘you gotta pick him for the culture’ was a corporate purity test that could cost us heavily. Arteta would have played Dowman if we were playing Sheffield Wednesday - why is it only keepers who get a pass for the culture?
Back to the positives. I don’t think that decision is costing us anything, I’m just angry, and the thing with building great culture, is if you sacrifice it for a short term game, that will always be noted by people you’re asking to participate in your mission, and it’ll take you down over the long term.
Man City weren’t good, they will lose more games this season, and I feel very confident Arteta will not allow a repeat of that in the Premier League. We will have an answer. Add Odegaard, Timber, and Martinelli to that starting 11 and it’s going to be a very different game. That’s what we’ll have in a few weeks. Technical security, runners, and rub of the green going our way.
Cup comps are rolls of the dice. The dice didn’t roll our way. But we’re still in three competitions. There’s no doubt we are the best team in England. I’m still proud of the team for getting to a cup final. I just hope they can flush that result out of the system, get some rest over that Southampton game, and be ready to go for a heavy end to the season.
I don’t like losing, but I also didn’t go into this season thinking a League Cup mattered. The only thing that makes this season one of value is a Premier League title or a Champions League win. Everything is just noise. So stay focused, don’t engage with the noise, and if you’re feeling sad just take a look at Spurs. x