City humble Arsenal after O’Reilly double seals League Cup
Nico O’Reilly holds aloft the League Cup after Manchester City beat Arsenal 2-0 at Wembley Stadium on Sunday - Getty Images/Adrian Dennis As Nico O’Reilly headed home his and Manchester City’s second goal, Pep Guardiola ran and danced down the Wembley touchline, gleefully conducting the crowd. He skipped along like a child, not a 55-year-old manager who has already won the lot. It may have only been a League Cup final but it showed how much it meant to Guardiola and City.
Who knows, it may be his 16th and last major trophy for the club . But dominating the apparently best team in the country, Arsenal, like this may also persuade Guardiola to stay. With the final won, in injury-time, the City fans waved their flags and sang Blue Moon with Guardiola rubbing his head and turning to watch them.
Penny for his thoughts? Can he walk away from this? To say Arsenal were schooled would not be an overstatement and this was a humbling lesson for Mikel Arteta.
Talk of a quadruple always felt unlikely but was impossible with Arsenal playing in such a conservative, defensive, unambitious, passive way apart from a flurry in the opening period. What were they thinking? This was a game in which their percentage football had its comeuppance and where claims that they play the way they do because teams go man-for-man against them or defend in low blocks was exposed.
Arsenal may well end up Premier League champions – the title is theirs to lose – and Champions League winners, although it does remain to be seen whether there are deeper ramifications and any psychological damage from this show-piece result. Declan Rice appeared distraught after Arsenal lost the final to City - Getty Images/Glyn Kirk For now Arteta and Arsenal have fallen woefully short and it remains six years since he won his one and only trophy as manager. If there was any desire to make a statement of intent here it was lost.
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