Key events
So, where is the game? Arsenal will want to get Bukayo Saka running at Nico O’Reilly. Though Timber’s superior defending has seem him usurp White, White is the better attacker and his relationship with Saka was a principal feature in the early years of the Arteta revival.
Otherwise, I’d expect to see Rice rampaging into tackles, after loose balls and in the channels – neither Bernardo nor Rodri have the legs to cover the width of the pitch, and I’d not be surprised to see Martin Zubimendi picking up spaces around the edge of the box. I’m not, though, sure what we’ll see from Havertz, who doesn’t play in midfield all that much these days. When he came through at Leverkusen, his soft feet and imagination on the ball shone through; Arsenal will hope he can conjure them space, and that he continues burnishing his impressive big-game record.
“Oh Lord, Daniel, the nostalgia!” begins Charles Antaki. “Too many guitars on stage, of course, but who (of a certain age) can resist the appeal of that lineup; soon to become hopelessly old-farty, cranky or dead, to be sure, but still just about alive. Happy, or happy-ish, days, before Dylan’s singing became completely incomprehensible, and popular music took a very different turn. It’s a museum piece, of course, but even museum pieces can get the old heart going and the foot tapping.”
The anticipatory noise the crowd makes when Dylan comes on stage is one of my favourites – and, now I come to think about it, reminds me of this League Cup final sound when the ball goes wide to Ander Herrera and everyone knows that if he puts his cross into the right place, Zlatan Ibrahimovic will do the rest.
Can Arsenal win the quadruple? It seems unlikely because it always is, and not much about this team suggests they’re good enough to do something beyond the greatest we’ve seen. On the other hand, the draws in Europe and the FA Cup have been kind, so they won’t have to win as many difficult matches as would ordinarily be the case and they are so diffocult to beat.
At Tottenham, Forest now lead 2-0; at Villa Park, Villa now lead West Ham 2-0.
Physically, the edge is with Arsenal, especially in midfield. Rodri may never recapture the power and pace which made him one of the best in his position, while Bernardo never it. They’ll look to control the tempo of the game and have the passing and smarts to do it, but it’s a tricky endeavour with Declan Rice charging about.
Guardiola, on the other hand, is still tinkering. In midweek, he left out Semenyo, presumably because it’s hard to carry two players – him and Erling Haaland – who don’t contribute loads apart from goals. He’ll hope that in Rayan Cherki and Jeremy Doku, he has enough creativity, and he may well be right – the former is a one-off who’ll be certain he can make this match all about him, while I really like how the latter has come on in the last few months. He’s so hard to read, and is making very good decisions; one on one against White, I fancy him.
Back to the teams, Arsenal’s looks more settled. They’re without a couple of regulars, but play according to the same principles in pretty much every game. They lack magic, especially in the absence of Eze, but of the two teams, they have the higher bottom level; chances are, they’ll defend properly whatever happens, so will take some beating.
Email! “I just cannot see Arsenal winning other than on penalties,” says Graham Fulcher. “No one is going to want to score the winning goal for them and then miss the Premier League run-in as a result. The last time someone scored a League Cup-winning goal for Arsenal they were dropped immediately afterwards…”
Goodness, that was a very long time ago. I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.
City, meanwhile, are without the injured Ruben Dias; Nathan Ake comes in. Otherwise, Antoine Semenyo returns, with Tijjani Reijnders dropping to the bench.
The headline news for Arsenal is that Eberechi Eze isn’t in the squad – presumably he’s injured – which is a particular shame for him, given how long it’s taken him to fully integrate, and for us, because he’s an artist with big-game pedigree. His spot goes to Kai Havertz, while at right-back, Ben White is in for the also-injured Jurrien Timber, and on the left, Pedro Hincapie is preferred to Riccardo Calafiori. Otherwise, Viktor Gyokeres continues up front, and on the left it’s Leandro Trossard not Gabriel Martinelli.
We’ll dig into those shortly, but before we do, join Rob Smyth for the second half of Spurs 0-1 Forest, probably the most important game played so far this season.
Teams!
Arsenal (4-3-3): Kepa; White, Saliba, Gabriel, Hincapie; Zubimendi, Rice, Havertz; Saka, Gyokeres, Trossard. Subs: Raya, Mosquera, Jesus, Martinelli, Norgaard, Madueke, Calafiori, Lewis-Skelly, Dowman.
Manchester City (4-3-3): Trafford; Nunes, Khusanov, Ake, O’Reilly; Rodri, Bernardo Silva, Cherki; Semenyo, Haaland, Doku. Subs: Donnarumma, Reijnders, Stones, Marmoush, Kovacic, Nico, Ait-Nouri, Savinho, Foden.
Referee: Peter Bankes (Lancashire)
Preamble
Humanity’s search for meaning is a struggle 300,000 years in the making, a succession of theories and experiments unable to fix on a reason or explanation for the lunacy that is life. We find patterns and seek stories to get nowhere, everything we are – thoughts, memories, feelings – bafflingly contained in a quivering lump of fat, water, protein, carbohydrates and salt. The reality – that we’re little more than sentient custard – is so discombobulating, it’s barely any consolation that we are, at least, seasoned.
The match we’re about to enjoy tests all of that, so full of so many potential interpretations it makes the head spin. Arsenal, without a trophy since the Covid Cup Final of 2020 and without a league title in more than two decades, desperately need to prove to themselves that they can win – all the more so given their opponents are also their rivals for that elusive pot. Should they triumph today, their nine-point advantage at the top of the table will seem insurmountable, whereas if they lose, City’s game in hand and home fixture against them might weigh heavy.
Words like “seem” and “might”, though, remind us that all this is conjecture. We indulge in it because we’ve no choice but it’s entirely feasible Arsenal lift the trophy today and win nothing else, just as it is that they lose today and win everything else, each extreme feasible and so too everything in between.
And that’s just them. City arrive at Wembley having lost their last two finals and just been knocked out of the Champions League in a peculiar tie against Real Madrid – one in which they played some excellent football yet never fully convinced, losing both legs for a multitude of good reasons. For the first time in a generation, there’s a sense that football has run away from Pep Guardiola, the brain that shaped what it looks like in the modern era no longer able to fully fathom it, never mind control its processes and outcomes. He looks tired, frustrated and maybe a little bored, his future uncertain; this could be his last season in his current job, or he may find a way to balance the competing forces of the physical and the technical, of power and possession, then go on to build yet another great team. Each extreme is feasible, so too everything in between; this is going to be something.
Kick-off: 4.30pm GMT
