Two Arsenal careers over as not even Arteta can shield some amid generational bottling

Mikel Arteta was not wrong. The Carabao Cup final defeat to Manchester City, from an Arsenal perspective, is “part of who you’re going to be in the next few weeks, in the next few months, in the next few years”.

But not in the way he hoped. Not in a way that “is going to make us better”, that will help “get the final push that we want”, that Arsenal can “use for the most important and beautiful part of the season”.

Not constructively anyway. Not to the advantage of a team that stood on the precipice of history and encountered a sudden and collective fear of heights.

Kevin Nash and Triple H might wince at how abruptly and embarrassingly Arsenal have blown their Quad. If they were to pick two plates to place down gently and absolve themselves of responsibility from it would have been the two domestic cups. But smashing both in this manner, either side of an international break in which their mild sense of panic was exposed by a surfeit of injury withdrawals, could genuinely derail an entire season.

This level of failure will not be contained to the Carabao and FA Cups; the residual damage will be felt further and wider, perhaps even beyond this season.

That nine-point gap to Manchester City looks weaker despite Arsenal having not played in the Premier League since winning their fourth consecutive game in mid-March. Their kind Champions League suddenly seems more trepidatious even with a European record of nine wins of ten draws this campaign.

If Southampton can conquer this Arsenal side then Sporting should not dread facing a side in a clear crisis of confidence.

The team selection does offer a defence of sorts. Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice, Piero Hincapie, Eberechi Eze, Leandro Trossard and Jurrien Timber all kept up their alibis and were left out of the squad after returning early from duty with their countries. It was not a full-strength offering. But Kepa, White, Mosquera, Gabriel, Lewis-Skelly, Odegaard, Norgaard, Dowman, Hazard, Martinelli and Jesus should be more than enough to dispatch Championship opposition.

It absolutely should not result in the 16-year-old being their best player on the evening, including the substitute cavalry thrown on in increasing desperation.

That did have the desired effect at first, with Viktor Gyokeres continuing his stellar form by converting Havertz’s pull-back to cancel out Ross Stewart’s well-taken opener.

But it was parity Arsenal failed to capitalise on as they immediately slipped back into a haze of complacency and distraction.

The winning goal from Shea Charles was damning. Six Arsenal players were in the area as the Manchester City academy alumnus shot, yet none could thwart the attempt, the dribble and pass from Tom Fellows which preceded it, or the overhit Charles ball which started a frankly unthreatening Southampton counter that the Gunners allowed to develop in front of them.

After Benjamin White’s miscued header for Stewart’s goal, Gabriel’s mistimed jump to let in Leo Scienza and Cristhian Mosquera’s lazy square pass that Fellows ought to have punished, it was the culmination of another uncharacteristically poor defensive performance on both an individual and team level.

Some of these players surely played their way out of the squad going forward. Lewis-Skelly deserves more faith and time after a difficult season but the same courtesy cannot be afforded to Martinelli or Jesus. Both Kepa and White do feel like substantial downgrades – although Riccardo Calafiori’s cameo was abysmal – and Christian Norgaard did little to prove he should have featured more.

But ultimately this falls on Arteta as the manager who needs to show he can drag Arsenal over the line. As he said after the game: “If someone has to take responsibility, that’s me.”

This is the first time Arsenal have lost successive games all season; every other defeat had been followed with a victory in their very next match. Their mettle and resolve is being tested in the final straight and thus far they have been found painfully wanting.