Jamie Carragher believes Mikel Arteta made a mistake picking Kepa Arrizabalaga over David Raya, insisting it’s not the same as Pep Guardiola picking James Trafford.
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta made the decision to stick with Kepa Arrizabalaga in goal for the League Cup final on Sunday, despite David Raya being in excellent recent form for the club.
That decision was brought sharply into focus as Kepa made a game-changing mistake, dropping the ball into Nico O’Reilly’s path for the vital opening goal of the contest.
Unsurprisingly, Arteta was asked about the selection decision after the game, and he insisted he stands by it.
“I have to do what I feel is right, which is honest and which is fair and I think we have an understanding goalkeeper in Kepa,” Arteta said. “He’s played all the [games in the] competition and I think it would have been very unfair for him and for the team to do something different.
“I can never promise a player to play a certain competition because at the end they have to earn it and they have to do enough like any other position to do that.
“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.”
But Jamie Carragher didn’t agree with Arteta’s assessment, arguing that the manager’s first responsibility is to the Arsenal fans, and that Pep Guardiola’s decision to pick James Trafford over Gianluigi Donnarumma was a different set of circumstances.
“Mikel Arteta does not owe Kepa anything,” Carragher told Sky Sports. “He owes Arsenal supporters the best possible chance of winning the first trophy in six years. They’ve won one trophy in nine years.
“The goalkeeper comes to the club because he knows he’s second choice. Yes, he can play through the rounds, but once you get to the final it has to change, for me, because they haven’t won enough trophies. He owes it to the supporters more than he owes it to Kepa.
“What about Manchester City? [Pep Guardiola] does owe [James] Trafford. He brought Trafford in at the start of the season to be the number one, didn’t think he was good enough, and then brought [Gianluigi] Donnarumma in. Not easy for the lad.
“Also, they’ve won four [League Cups]. The pressure on Manchester City going into today to win another Carabao Cup is not the same as for Arsenal.
“[Kepa] signed for the club because he knows he’s second choice and he’s not good enough for the top level, we’ve seen that at Chelsea.”
It’s understandable that Kepa would play in the early rounds of the cup competitions, facing the likes of Port Vale and Brighton, giving Raya a rest. And when those matches went well, it also made sense that he’d keep his place against Crystal Palace. He hadn’t given Arteta a reason to drop him.
But that changed after the turn of the year. First there was the shot he spilled into a dangerous area for Portsmouth’s opening goal, then the way Chelsea dominated him on set-pieces at Stamford Bridge, then the shot he let slip under him against Mansfield Town.
More than that, the ex-Chelsea man had just never shown the same ability to play out from the back that Raya shows on a weekly basis.
Kepa had given Arteta multiple signs that he couldn’t be trusted in the final, and it became a choice between picking the better player in better form or the player who simply had the spot by default.
It’s a shame Arteta chose the latter, as it cost the club a proper chance at a trophy.