Mikel Arteta said it would have been “very unfair” to drop Kepa Arrizabalaga for the Carabao Cup final as he defended his decision to pick the goalkeeper whose mistake gifted victory to Manchester City.
Arsenal’s first-choice goalkeeper David Raya was left on the bench as his deputy Arrizabalaga started and spilled Rayan Cherki’s cross for Nico O’Reilly to open the scoring in City’s 2-0 win at Wembley.
The Spaniard, a summer signing from Chelsea, has played throughout Arsenal’s Carabao Cup run but defeat means they have still not won a major trophy since 2020, while Raya has the most clean sheets in the Premier League.
“I understand that but I have to do what I feel is right, which is honest and which is fair,” said Arteta. “I think we have understanding with Kepa, he’s played all the competition and I think it would have been very, very unfair for him and for the team to do something different.”
Arteta denied he had guaranteed Arrizabalaga he would play in domestic cup competitions when he joined, saying he felt the 31-year-old had deserved to play.
“I can never promise a player to play certain competitions because at the end they have to earn it and they have to do enough like any other position to do that,” he explained.
“We are guided by what we’ve seen and what he’s done, what he’s done in the competition, and he helped us to go all the way through here. I believe it’s the right thing to do and that’s it. Errors are part of football and today it happened unfortunately in a crucial moment.”
Arteta said defeat left a “bad taste” for Arsenal as he struggled to process his disappointment.
He added: “I’m very sad. It’s a very hard one to take, especially for our players and our supporters because we know how much it means to them and how much we want it, and the fact that we haven’t managed to deliver that obviously is disappointing and sad, and it leaves you with a really bad taste.”
Premier League leaders Arsenal still have a potential treble to play for and Arteta believes they will have more hunger now.
He added: “What this team has done in the last eight months has been incredible, and we’re going to use this disappointment and this fire in the belly to have the most amazing two months that we have ever had together.”
Eberechi Eze was ruled out of the final with a calf problem and will undergo a scan later this week but Arteta has ruled him out of the England squad to play Uruguay and Japan.
