I do not care for the Carabao Cup. And I’m not just saying that in the wake of an embarrassing loss in that competition. I have long been on the record as not having a shred of respect for this sorry, unnecessary imitation of the FA Cup. I have disliked it — nay, despised it — since it was the Carling Cup and I was a teenager watching Arsène Wenger’s sides suffer needless injuries and indignities for a trophy no one becomes a legend for lifting.
It is the Europa Conference League of domestic cups. To my mind, it’s nothing more than a prolonged advertisement for a rather radioactive-looking energy drink. It is simply a ploy to rake in more commercial revenue under the guise of providing more opportunities for the clubs further down the footballing period to have their big moment.
So when Arsenal crashed out of this season’s edition of the Carabao Cup via a penalty shootout at Fleetwood Town, I felt more relief than anything else. Because when Arsenal lost the final of this same tournament seven months ago, I had felt more anger than anything else. The Gunners had played nine games in January in part thanks to their progression in the competition, had logged more minutes in players who had finished the 25/26 campaign with several thousand of them in their legs, but ultimately had nothing to show for it except for a moment that threatened to derail their title challenge.
Losing the Champions League final is heartbreaking but still a day to remember in your club’s history. An FA Cup final is always a fun day out at Wembley for fans. Losing a Carabao Cup final just feels like a monumental waste of time.
Now, Arsenal won’t be wasting that time this season. The Premier League champions will have an extra few weeks of rest in the busiest time of the season due to their loss at Fleetwood Town on Tuesday. That will surely be a help as the Gunners aim to fry bigger fish in the new year.
[X avatar for @MKTRIB_
MB2@MKTRIB_Arsenal now will have a full week of rest: - before Man Utd (h), - before Hull City (a), - in the week between Man City (a) and Liverpool (h) - And will not need to potentially re-schedule a home tie with Sunderland (who could be in Europa action) 20-30 rest days. Added.11:30 PM · Oct 27, 2026 · 447K Views57 Replies · 352 Reposts · 4.6K Likes](https://x.com/MKTRIB_/status/2115224726930907619?a=KtL2UHIkyZLGG3vyI9o&s=20)
Yes, losing to a side that is 18th in League Two is embarrassing. As fans, we will have to take our licks for a little while. But I’ll be honest — I never really expected any fluency from Arsenal on Tuesday.
From the outset, this match had the makings of a difficult afternoon. The weather was cold and blustery. The pitch didn’t look particularly great. An unaffiliated drone hovering over the ground shortly after kickoff caused a ten-minute pause in proceedings, long enough that players had to do a second round of warmups as they waited to resume.
Additionally, believe it or not, these games are usually tricky for big clubs. Footballers who normally compete at the highest level of the sport have to summon the willpower to contend with uncultured brutes (with all due respect) who are essentially playing in their Super Bowl. And they have to do so without picking up injuries or suspensions that prevent them from featuring in matches of greater consequence. In effect, every one of these matches is a challenge that must be overcome while in first gear.
It’s why Arsenal and others don’t typically obtain historic wins in these fixtures. Especially away, such games are either forgettable scuffles or momentarily significant upsets that are quickly lost to time. The people crashing out over this online won’t remember it the next time they crash out over another such loss.
If anything, what some are viewing as a disaster strikes me as a win-win scenario, to the point that I applauded Bruno Guimarães’ penalty being saved during the shootout. The Gunners’ January and February has been freed up from unneeded away trips and two-legged semifinals, but now Arteta has a damn good reason to demand an increase of the level and to scare that improvement out of his players if he needs to. And with a trip to Anfield up next, a drastically better showing will indeed be required.
Ballers
Ceadach O’Neill
There were bright spots from the loss at Fleetwood Town, and one of them was O’Neill. The 18-year-old Northern Irishman made his first-team debut on Tuesday, and he was one of the few Arsenal players who gave a good account of themselves in this match. He certainly seemed to care more about the occasion than most of his senior teammates.
For much of the match, O’Neill was one of the Gunners’ most threatening players. He created three chances, the joint-most in the game. The youngster also gave his marker a hard time, earning four fouls on Tuesday — with a couple of those resulting in free kicks in some fairly dangerous areas.
Ultimately, O’Neill provided the moment that at least gave Arsenal a bit of hope they could scrounge around for a result. In the 50th minute, O’Neill drove a ball across Fleetwood Town’s penalty area which Viktor Gyökeres clambered into the air and scuffed (I think he made contact with it?) into the net for an equalizer. Given Max Dowman’s suspension and the possibility of more forward injuries, there is a chance he makes the bench for the trip to Liverpool. And he’s earned that.
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Fallers
Kai Havertz
Havertz wasn’t just bad at Fleetwood Town. He was putrid. The German put up an absolute disasterclass on Tuesday, to the point where I have to wonder how much he really cared about this game.
For the entirety of the match, Havertz was clumsy on the ball and inefficient when it came time to execute at the end of attacking moves. He managed the most touches in the opposition penalty area and the most shots, but didn’t do anything with those opportunities against a side in danger of playing non-league football next season.
In the 40th minute, he headed over from close range. In the 55th minute, the goal stood open in front of him as the ball bounced up perfectly, and his frankly lazy volley went straight to the one place where it shouldn’t have — a Fleetwood Town defender’s head — almost as if by magnetism. His other attempts throughout the match all missed the mark. At least he tucked away his penalty in the shootout, I guess.
We are reaching an inflection point regarding Arsenal’s attack. The Gunners boast best-in-class footballers elsewhere on the pitch, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that they need an injection of quality up top. I’m not asking for Arsenal to be the best in all three thirds, but in January I do want to see the acquisition of a player or two who can bring some efficiency, some killer instinct, to a side that have started the season with some pretty poor execution in front of goal.
And Havertz is a player who needs to be looked at as part of this inquisition. I rate him much more highly than your typical Arsenal supporter; when he is in form, I genuinely think he is a top-ten center forward in the world, especially for how the champions want to play. He is an immensely intelligent player who can compete physically and can display great technical quality. But when he goes cold, he can reach subzero levels of ineptitude. It’s too low a floor to be comfortable with. With his contract up in under two years, perhaps it’s time for the Gunners to consider their future options at that position.
Marli Salmon
I don’t like criticizing a 17-year-old center back, so I’ll keep it brief. However, this should have been an opportunity for Salmon to impress and further ingratiate himself with the first team. Instead, his start was a pretty disastrous cameo.
Fleetwood Town’s goal came about when Arsenal’s defense failed to properly clear the ball and it was played to Aaron Loupalo-Bi. Salmon got way too tight to the 20-year-old striker and got turned before pretty emphatically losing the physical battle. The young defender fell away and could only watch as Loupalo-Bi slid the ball past Illan Meslier.
Salmon was hooked at halftime and while I feel for the Englishman, I don’t think he can have any complaints. But I hope he keeps his head up and learns from this game.
Illan Meslier
Speaking of Meslier, the Frenchman was afforded a competitive debut for the Gunners, surprisingly starting over Kepa Arrizabalaga on Tuesday. And essentially, I’m not sure he earned another start. I know David Raya’s are big shoes to fill, but Meslier oozed uncertainty throughout the match and did not help his side on the few occasions he was even required to do so.
For Loupalo-Bi’s goal, I think Meslier hesitated to rush out of his goal to put pressure on the striker. When the Fleetwood Town man fired at goal, the Arsenal keeper let the shot zip right through his legs into the goal. It’s easy to say, but I’m quite confident Raya would have saved that.
During the penalty shootout, the Frenchman didn’t appear to have a snowball’s chance in hell of stopping a single shot. Every dive felt doomed, and the home team converted all of their five spot kicks. If Kepa reclaims the backup role after this, I wouldn’t be surprised.
Martín Zubimendi
Last season, Zubimendi received a tidal wave of criticism for how conservative he could be on the ball. But I think a lot of the time his caution was a net positive — the Premier League is a brutal gauntlet where mistakes are punished ruthlessly and creating chances was particularly difficult last season. Sometimes you have to get by how you can. Also, I’m not really sure the Spaniard was the kind of play who could be expected to pick locks consistently in the English top flight. And yet, he finished with six goals and three assists in all competitions.
But even against League Two opposition, Zubimendi refused to take risks on the ball. Despite having 81 touches of the ball, the midfielder did not create any chances, did not attempt any shots, and did not have any touches in the opposition box. As one of the more senior players on the pitch against a vastly inferior team, Zubimendi finished with a combined expected goals and expected assists value of 0.08.
His lack of cutting edge meant that that Martin Ødegaard had to take the pitch and do the job of orchestrating the attack. I’d imagine that Mikel Arteta had really hoped to avoid that. At a time when speculation over his future is growing, Zubimendi’s inability to lead the way for a rotated side and generate any threat was concerning.
Arteta’s trust in his squad
Something I’ve been happy to see of late has been the willingness with which Arteta has utilized the depth at his disposal. The “B team”, as it were, have been trusted to help shoulder the load so that Arsenal’s stars may perform at their best. Players like Mikel Merino, Noni Madueke, Piero Hincapié, and Ben White have been relied upon in situations with significant stakes so that the ilk of Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice, and Riccardo Calafiori aren’t run into the ground. That hasn’t always been the case; earlier in his tenure, Arteta repeatedly spoke about how players should be ready to play every three days.
One nagging thought I’ve had since full time at Fleetwood Town has been that this could be a painful enough moment to make the Arsenal manager rethink that change in policy. He put his faith in a rotated side to secure a win at extremely beatable opposition and they failed. I’m sure I’m just overreacting and that the gaffer is thoughtful enough to understand the specific factors that went into the loss. But it is a worry, and I am interested to see how Arteta reacts.
The referee (again)
I just want to say from the jump here, this is in no way some sort of excuse for Arsenal failing to overcome Fleetwood Town. They should have been able to do that on Tuesday, no ifs, ands, or buts. However, the red card that Michael Salisbury gave to Dowman will boil my blood for quite some time.
A Fleetwood Town player dove in recklessly against the young Englishman, committing a scissor tackle on the 16-year-old from behind. On another night, Dowman’s leg is planted and that challenge tears his ACL, breaks his ankle, or snaps his tibia in half. And I would bet good money that the brute who attempted that tackle knew it.
Naturally, Dowman reacted angrily. And while some may say he should have kept his cool, I deeply understand his anger. This is a future star, a talent recognized by Lionel Messi as being part of the next generation of greats. That could have all been taken away from him in an instant because some no-name oaf on a side that’s practically semi-professional saw red for a second. So yes, of course Dowman attempted to kick out. And I do mean “attempted” — with his leg still caught underneath the opponent who had essentially tried to injure him, it came out as more of a shove with his shin and foot.
But Salisbury decided that a potential career-ender of a tackle was fine. In the referee’s eyes, the real issue was Dowman’s reaction and he sent off the youngster in the 85th minute of the match. Now, the Arsenal man will have to serve a three-match suspension that could see him miss some important matches (assuming the Gunners don’t win their appeal against the red card).
I just think it’s a disgrace. Refereeing in England focuses more on norms and arbitrary conventions than it does on the preserving of player safety. That’s how you get horrific injuries in the game and football fans mocking severely hurt players for being soft. It’s a reminder that there are some very dark corners of this sport that we love.
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