Arsenal have been beaten in the Carabao Cup final at Wembley with Manchester City’s young full-back, Nico O’Reilly, stunning their rivals with two goals in four minutes.
Despite being nine points clear of their rivals at the top of the Premier League table, it puts an end to Arsenal’s hopes of a quadruple, winning all four major trophies in a season.
After a goalless first half, O’Reilly opened the scoring in the 60th minute when Arsenal keeper Kepa Arrizabalaga fumbled the ball into his path from a few yards out.
Four minutes later, O’Reilly scored again, doubling City’s advantage.
Arsenal went into the cup final still in contention for an unprecedented, but unlikely, quadruple.
After a less-than-successful season so far, Manchester City were hoping to pick up some silverware. The win marks a record fifth League Cup success for Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola.
Despite being goalless in the first half, both sides had chances with Erling Haaland heading over from short range and City’s keeper James Trafford pulling out a triple save to keep Arsenal out.
O’Reilly said he was “buzzing” after scoring both goals on the same weekend as his birthday.
“Unbelievable feeling to win a final and beat this team. We know how good they [Arsenal] are. Now we need to build on it. It will give us good momentum,” he told Sky Sports.
Sky Sports’ Gary Neville said: “City have been fantastic in this second half. There were many like myself who fancied Arsenal this afternoon, but Arteta will be bewildered with how his team have performed.”
That was also the sentiment from Sky Sports’ Jamie Redknapp: “City were by far the better team. Arsenal didn’t have an answer. They missed [captain Martin] Odegaard, no [Eberechi] Eze [both absent because of injury], they had no real cohesion, no pace up front.”
Sky Sports
