Arsenal were the second big side to exit the competition at this stage after holders Manchester United were comprehensively beaten by Newcastle United at Old Trafford.
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Arsenal failed to match their recent high standards after suffering a shock 3-1 defeat to West Ham United in the Carabao Cup. They were the second big side to exit the competition at this stage after holders Manchester United were comprehensively beaten by Newcastle United at Old Trafford. In the fixture at London Stadium, West Ham produced a spirited display. It began with Ben White scoring an own goal and later, Mohammed Kudus and Jarrod Bowen added to it.
However, the controversy revolved around the opening goal. Ben White had unfortunately headed a corner from Jarrod Bowen past his own goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale. However, it was later found that West Ham United midfielder Tomas Soucek had a hold of Ramsdale’s shirt. Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta believed that the goal would have been ruled out if VAR was in use. Nonetheless, Arteta does not want to use it as an excuse.
During his post-match media duties, Arteta was asked if the first West Ham goal would have been ruled out by VAR. Arteta, quoted by Arsenal.com, said, “Yeah, for sure. If there’s VAR, then there’s no goal, that’s for sure, but I understand that for the referee it’s difficult because the angle and the amount of people that are there affects the game. But again, I don’t want to use that as an excuse, we can still compete on the goal much better than we did, and be in better positions, but obviously that takes something from the game which is very important, which is momentum.”
Later giving the assessment of the match, the Arsenal manager said, “I’m very disappointed. Obviously I’m responsible for that, we are out of the cup and we wanted to play a very different game, and especially we wanted to compete in a game like this, which we discussed for 48 hours, in a very different way to what we’ve done.” Asked how disappointing the performance was, he replied, “First of all, there’s disappointment with myself, because obviously I wanted the team to play in a very different way and we haven’t managed to do that and every time that you lose a game, the pain is there and we have to use this pain for Saturday, that’s for sure.”
Arteta was asked whether the team lacked physicality without William Saliba and Declan Rice in the starting lineup. “Obviously there are different players that bring something different to the table but it’s not about that, it’s about a lot of simple things that we didn’t do well at all today. Some of them were competing, some were duels, 50/50’s but a lot of giveaways we have in areas that we didn’t allow us in any moment to be a threat in the final third and that’s something we have to improve dramatically from today,” he elaborated.
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