Sky Sports’ Paul Merson believes Arsenal will still win the Premier League this season despite their Carabao Cup final defeat to Manchester City – but it’s the only trophy the Gunners will lift this season.
Two goals from Nico O’Reilly gave City a 2-0 win at Wembley, which ended Arsenal’s pursuit of an unprecedented quadruple.
Mikel Arteta’s side are still in the quarter-finals of the Champions League and FA Cup this season – while they hold a nine-point lead over second-placed City, with a Premier League meeting between the two to come on April 19.
Read below for the Magic Man’s thoughts on Arsenal’s Carabao Cup final loss…
‘Man City absolutely destroyed Arsenal’
Man City turned up in the second half of the Carabao Cup final and absolutely gave Arsenal a footballing lesson at the highest level.
For 25 minutes of the second half, no one at Arsenal wanted the ball. They were booting the ball away, just kicking it back to City.
And City destroyed them, absolutely destroyed them.
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Relive the story of the day as Manchester City beat Arsenal 2-0 in the 2026 Carabao Cup final at Wembley.
It’s a sore one for Arsenal. It’s a confidence-sapping defeat because you come in the dressing room after that and think: oh my God, we just got destroyed in the second half.
Will it impact the Premier League? Arsenal are too good for the other teams they have to play against in the run-in, so they will beat those teams.
But watching that game and that second half, I don’t see Arsenal winning anything else but the Premier League.
Man City are still in the FA Cup. Watching that game, you’d be shocked if Arsenal went back to Wembley and beat them.
And then in the Champions League, I look at Barcelona – who Arsenal are on course to play in the semi-finals – and Arsenal haven’t got the pace to trouble Barcelona’s high line.
The forward players aren’t electric – they’re not like Anthony Elanga or Anthony Gordon who caused Barcelona problems in the last 16.
I’d dread to think what Barcelona could do to Arsenal.
‘Arsenal players not wanting the ball is pretty worrying’
It’s a bad mistake from Kepa, a shocker of a mistake. But he wasn’t on the pitch when eight of Arsenal’s outfield players were getting ripped to shreds.
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Nico O’Reilly gives Manchester City the opener in their Carabao Cup final clash with Arsenal.
Only two Arsenal players could walk off the pitch with their head held high and they are William Saliba and Gabriel. They were outstanding, and they couldn’t do any more.
For the other eight players, Kepa’s done them a favour because everyone’s now talking about him and the mistake – but no-one will talk about the other players not deserving more than a five out of 10.
I was at Wembley and what I was watching was: who on Arsenal’s team wanted the ball when they were getting beat and it was going horribly wrong? And no-one wanted the ball. Nobody.
If any of those players want to sit down and watch a video of me and go: I was looking for it here and there, I would say: ‘I’m afraid you weren’t’. It was pretty worrying.
The positive for Arsenal is that they are still in three tournaments. You can’t lose sight of that. The main thing for them is to win the Premier League.
If you were to give up any trophy, it would have been the Carabao Cup. But it’s another trophy gone missing, another lost final – and they’re going to get some flak this week.
