In February 2018, Pep Guardiola won his first trophy with Manchester City: the Carabao Cup. When he held it aloft, Mikel Arteta was standing right beside him.
After City comprehensively dismantled Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal 3-0 at Wembley Stadium, Guardiola declared that triumph in English football’s third-most-prestigious competition could propel his team onto new heights.
“Winning titles helps you to win more,” the highly decorated former Barcelona and Bayern Munich head coach stated in his post-match press conference. “It is so important to win the first one. It is going to help us in the Premier League – where we will try to win the rest of our games – and the Champions League.”
Three months later, Guardiola lifted the Premier League trophy too, with assistant Arteta again at his elbow.
Now Arsenal manager, Arteta has seen at first-hand the galvanising power this particular piece of silverware can have on the team who win it. This weekend, he seeks to harness it for himself, at Guardiola’s expense.
The two former colleagues will be in opposing dugouts at Wembley on Sunday for this season’s Carabao Cup final, as managers of Arsenal and City respectively. The first prize of the domestic season will be decided between the teams who sit first and second in the Premier League with two months of the season to go.
In Arsenal’s pre-match press conference, Arteta echoed Guardiola’s comments from 2018. “Winning always helps,” he said. “And winning a trophy helps more, for sure. It gives you confidence, it gives you the feeling that when it comes to that moment, you can do it, and you have enough resources to achieve what you want.”
That sentiment appears to be shared by his players.
“For us, hopefully this could be a way for us to open our trophy cabinet,” goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga told the midweek matchday programme for the Champions League game against Bayer Leverkusen, looking ahead to tomorrow’s final. “And to keep it open.”
The Carabao Cup would not be Arteta’s first piece of silverware in charge of Arsenal. In his introductory 2019-20 season — his first anywhere as a head coach or manager — he landed the FA Cup, beating City and Chelsea en route to the trophy.
He has, in pricklier moments, pointed to a couple of Community Shield wins later that same year and in 2023 but nobody is credibly counting those. So it is now almost six years without a (major) trophy. For a club of Arsenal’s stature, that is too long. There are trophies Arsenal prize above the Carabao Cup, but a club in their position cannot turn their nose up at any form of silverware.
Community Shields aside, this is Arsenal’s first final since that day in 2020, too. To find a comparable stretch of seasons in club history without such a showpiece occasion, you have to go back to the drought they suffered between 1980 and 1987.
That ended in this competition, as George Graham’s team overcame Liverpool 2-1 at Wembley. Two years later, they would pip the same Kenny Dalglish-managed rivals to the league title in the most dramatic fashion. Arsenal will hope to make that transition from cup kings to league champions rather swiftly this time around.
Arteta insisted Arsenal are not looking past this final at competitions carrying greater prestige that will be decided in May. But he recognises the supporters’ hopes that it could be a gateway to more success; the first domino to fall in a season that can end with them celebrating an unprecedented quadruple.
Arsenal’s manager conceded that it’s been “a while” since silverware. Only Bukayo Saka remains in his current squad from the one that lifted the FA Cup in 2020.
Arteta’s only previous major trophy lift as Arsenal boss came during the pandemic (Catherine Ivill/Getty Images)
In that intervening period, Arsenal have been derided as perennial runners-up, serial semi-finalists. That’s not entirely fair: those three consecutive second-place finishes in the Premier League are indicative of a consistent level of competitive performance. But trophies are needed now, for the credibility of both the manager and the wider project.
Arteta and Arsenal thought that FA Cup final triumph six years ago would be a springboard to more glory. Instead, it became a life raft he clung to in the difficult times that followed.
Arsenal weren’t set up for sustained success back then. That has changed. They’ve invested to create a squad which enables them to compete across multiple fronts. They play in a manner that suggests they prioritise victories over plaudits. Arteta’s team have undeniably been built to win. Now is the time to deliver on that promise. It is, as Arteta called it, “showtime”.
“It’s one of the defining moments, because at the end it’s whether you win the trophy or not,” he said. “And that’s the most important thing once you get to the final. We need to prove that point. That’s clear. And that has to be done on the pitch.”
A few weeks ago, it felt like this final would have significant ramifications on the title race — like the winners tomorrow would seize the momentum for the Premier League run-in. The widening gap between Arsenal and City (currently nine points) has taken some of the edge off those stakes.
There are many narratives that weave through this final: the destination of the championship (City have a game in hand and Arsenal, who unlike them still have Champions League knockout-phase commitments to juggle, must go to the Etihad Stadium on April 19), the master versus apprentice aspect in the dugouts, Arsenal’s chequered history in League Cup finals (won two, lost six).
It is also Arsenal’s first Wembley showpiece occasion with fans present (again, not counting the Community Shield) since that loss to City in this competition eight years ago — the FA Cup semi-finals and final there in 2020 took place in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, so the stands were empty. Arteta has urged Arsenal’s supporters to find the fun on this season’s run-in. A party at Wembley on Sunday could be just the tonic.
But the primary theme may be of Arsenal levelling up from contenders to being winners again.
This final feels like a moment to unlock their potential, to set the fuse of the cannon emblem on their shirts alight.
Lose it, and they’ll have to suffer the same old barbs for at least a couple of months more. Win, and it may launch them into a new era.
For Arsenal and Arteta, the League Cup has never mattered more.
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