Arsenal bottle the EFL Cup final, wingers make winners for Man City and Pep Guardiola

Who does not love an underdog story?

Things were supposed to be different for Arsenal in the 2025-26 EFL Cup final. The Gunners were supposed to exorcise the demons of Chelsea 2007, Birmingham City 2011 and Manchester City 2018, both for their sake of their now-extinct quadruple dreams and not-untruthful 'bottlers' tag that has haunted them for almost 50 months.

But Mikel Arteta's men bottled it. Bottled it hard. And not a single soul with red and white stripes on their heart can claim that Pep Guardiola's men did not deserve their winners' medals on Sunday evening.

Arsenal 0-2 Man City: Arteta's toothless attack run out of ideas again

The 2025-26 EFL Cup final was the first of its kind to be played by the top two Premier League teams, but for a layperson with no knowledge of the current status quo, they could have been forgiven for questioning whether Arsenal were really among the prospective gold or silver medallists.

The current Premier League leaders were billed as the pre-game favourites by many - understandable given how Man City had been swatted aside by Real Madrid and lost their midas touch in the Premier League - but they were facing an uphill climb before the first whistle even blew.

Arsenal's pre-game training pictures suggested that all of Eberechi Eze, Martin Odegaard and Jurrien Timber would be back from injury in time to face the Sky Blues, but not one member of the trio made the squad. The latter stressed after Bayer Leverkusen that he would be "fine" after his knock, which appeared to be benign at the time.

But it was not benign, he was not fine, and Arsenal were not fine.

Kai Havertz for Eze and Odegaard was the sensible solution, even if the German cannot match up to either counterpart's playmaking genius, but one would at least expect a £65m attacker to lift the ball over a goalkeeper - any goalkeeper - with most of the net at his mercy.

James Trafford's tremendous triple save should have at least been the catalyst Arsenal needed to come again, and again, and again, but for whatever inexplicable reason, the life was sucked out of Arteta's men after the opening 10 minutes, as their meek offence ran out of ideas worryingly fast.

Arsenal 0-2 Man City: The wingers make the winners for Man City

While Arsenal toiled in the final third, the wingers made the winners for Man City.

On their day, Havertz, Saka and Leandro Trossard are fine attackers in their own right, but none can match up to the unpredictable skillset of Antoine Semenyo, Rayan Cherki or Jeremy Doku, who proved too hot for Arsenal to handle all afternoon.

Forever bullish on the ball and perpetually relentless of it, City's tricky triumvirate were the stimulants behind the Sky Blues' success at Wembley Stadium, even if the industrious Nico O'Reilly will ultimately be remembered as the match-winner.

Today was a day for individual attacking prowess to triumph over collective defensive guile, and when Arsenal's set-pieces are also failing them alongside their usual rearguard resilience, they simply have no way of making up for their perennial lack of ingenuity.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing in football, and the questions about Arteta's selection calls will inevitably begin. Should the Spaniard have scrapped sentimentality and started David Raya? Did Noni Madueke and Riccardo Calafiori come on too late? Was Max Dowman worth a shot?

At least one is true; a tightrope-walking Piero Hincapie coming out for the second half was highly questionable, especially when the marauding Calafiori proved to be Arsenal's most dangerous attacker - yes, their most dangerous attacker - during his 30-minute cameo.

But after all that has been said, the same old problems arose for Arsenal under the arch; chance creation was in the shortest supply imaginable.

The quadruple is gone, but that was only ever a pipe dream, even for the most optimistic glass-half-full supporter. However, the powerful psychological impact will undoubtedly linger, and based on today's evidence, the Premier League title is far from a foregone conclusion.