Manchester City and Arsenal meet in a mouth-watering Carabao Cup final at Wembley on Sunday afternoon. Pep Guardiola is aiming to win the first of three trophies this season and the first silverware of his tenure at the Etihad Stadium.
Meanwhile, Arsene Wenger is hoping to win this competition for the first time in an Arsenal career that has spanned over 20 years.
Arsenal line up
The Gunners look like this…
- Arsenal: Ospina; Bellerin, Mustafi, Koscielny, Chambers, Monreal; Xhaka, Wilshere, Ramsey, Ozil; Aubameyang
- Subs: Cech, Kolasinac, Mertesacker, Elneny, Maitland-Niles, Iwobi, Welbeck
City team
- The Man City team for today’s battle of the reserve goalkeepers looks like this…
- City: Bravo, Walker, Kompany (c), Otamendi, Danilo, Fernandinho, Silva, Gundogan, De Bruyne, Sane, Aguero
- Subs: Ederson, Stones, Laporte, Bernardo, Zinchenko, Foden, Jesus
Live streaming match :
The weather may still be stuck in mid-winter, but we are approaching the business end of the football season now… you know, the one where they start handing out trophies.
And that brings us to Wembley and the first final of the season as I welcome you to Sportsmail’s live coverage of Arsenal vs Manchester City in the Carabao Cup final.
Here’s Arsene Wenger and Pep Guardiola going completely off script with highly controversial pre-match interviews…
Wenger: “You’re always nervous, it’s a big fight to get there and on the day you want to turn up with a strong performance. We’re playing a strong opponent, we want to be at our best and be efficient.”
Pep: “Unfortunately we still have some injured and suspended players but it’s a final, it’s not about the guys who are not available. It’s important to be in the final, we want to win it, and after that we have the Premier League in our mind and trying to reach the final of the Champions League.”
City manager Pep Guardiola, meanwhile, is trying to guard against nerves in his side ahead of this first final of the season.
“In the first finals you are more nervous than the next one. I try to say to the players to play more like a friendly game to be more calm, but also with more courage.
“I think it’s a game we have to try to enjoy the most, it’s a final. We are here to play these types of game, why to be nervous? Why to worry about win, win, win.
“It’s just a game. But no regrets after the game. It’s too late for ‘I didn’t do what I should do’ because it’s a final.”
Wenger looking to make history
Although he hasn’t won the Legaue Cup before, and the debate about how long he can/should carry on as manager will continue to coin it in for ArsenalFanTV for many a long month to come, Arsene Wenger does have a very good Wembley record.
The recent defeat to Spurs here, in what is of course technically a Tottenham home match, broke a run of nine straight wins at the national stadium for the Arsenal manager.
Wenger has won on each of his last nine trips to Wembley when it’s been a neutral venue and since April 2014 has won three FA Cup semi-finals, three FA Cup finals and three Community Shields.