Fleetwood 1-1 Arsenal ended in a 5-3 penalty shootout defeat on Tuesday night, and the reigning Premier League champions are out of the EFL Cup at the fourth-round stage.
Arsenal travelled to Highbury Stadium on the back of a routine 2-0 league win over Everton. Then Mikel Arteta made nine changes to his starting lineup and handed a club debut to backup goalkeeper Illan Meslier. It did not work.
The result makes Fleetwood Town, of League Two, the first fourth-tier side to knock out the reigning top-flight champions from the competition. It is also only the second time Arsenal have lost a League Cup tie to a fourth-tier club, after the shootout defeat to Bradford City in 2012-13.
How did Fleetwood 1-1 Arsenal unfold?
The tie was disrupted barely a minute after kick-off, when a drone hovering above the stadium forced the referee to halt play for more than eight minutes.
Once it resumed, the hosts struck in the 21st minute. Fulham loanee Aaron Loupalo-Bi pounced on a mistake from young defender Marli Salmon and fired a low finish past Meslier.
Arteta responded at the interval by introducing Martin Odegaard and Ben White, and the changes paid off quickly. Viktor Gyokeres bundled home an untidy equaliser from a teasing Ceadach O’Neill cross five minutes into the second half.
The Gunners then monopolised possession but could not find a cutting edge, despite what looked like a mismatch on paper in our Fleetwood vs Arsenal preview.
Why was Max Dowman sent off against Fleetwood?
Things got harder in the 85th minute. 16-year-old prodigy Max Dowman was shown a straight red card for kicking out at Harrison Neal. Arsenal played the rest of normal time with ten men, and the 1-1 draw went straight to penalties.
It was a harsh lesson for a teenager who had been tipped for more minutes after Arteta said he probably deserved them.
In the shootout, Jay Lynch saved Bruno Guimaraes’s spot kick, and Conor Haughey converted the decisive penalty to seal a monumental win for Matt Lawlor’s side.
What did Arteta say after the Fleetwood defeat?
The Arsenal manager had no complaints about the effort. “I have nothing to fault the players for their attitude and intensity throughout the game, with 11 and with 10, but when you are playing in that superior way, you have to give nothing to the opponent,” Arteta said.
“When we create the volume of shots and chances we did, you have to score three, four or five. You capitalise on it. If you don’t, there are no margins, and that’s the reality.
“Then you have to wait and get through the round on penalties, and we didn’t do that.”
Arsenal have now lost consecutive penalty shootouts, following their heartbreak against Paris Saint-Germain in last season’s Champions League final in Budapest.
Author Opinion
Nine changes is a lot to ask of a squad that was supposed to prove its depth, and the questions about that depth will not go away quickly. Still, a side that created the volume of chances Arteta described should have won this in 90 minutes. The Gunners are back in Premier League action this weekend, and the response there matters far more than a cup exit.
