Arsenal are not losers, or chokers. So when will they be winners?

By the time Nico O’Reilly’s shot rippled the net to confirm Manchester City’s second goal at Wembley, the familiar soundtrack of Arsenal anguish was already rising from the blue-and-white half of the stadium. Mikel Arteta’s players trudged towards the touchline, eyes fixed on the turf, the swagger of Saturday’s social-media hype reel a distant memory. Nine hours earlier the club’s media channels had released a 61-second film dripping with barber-shop confidence and orchestral bravado—“We’re made for days like this,” Declan Rice beamed. The final whistle proved only that Arsenal remain specialists in turning promise into pain.

Sunday’s 2-0 defeat was their fourth loss in 50 matches this season, a record that mocks the “bottlers” label thrown around by rival supporters. City, by comparison, have already lost nine times; Liverpool 14; Chelsea 15; Tottenham 19. Yet the numbers do nothing to dull the sting of a performance that felt eerily reminiscent of Arsenal’s fragile past: passive, uncertain, second-best when the stakes spiked. For a squad nine points clear atop the Premier League and still alive in the Champions League and FA Cup, the Carabao Cup final was supposed to be the first rung on a ladder towards a historic treble. Instead it has become another data point in a decade-long debate: can this club truly cross the line from contender to champion?

Arteta refused to blame psychology, calling that “too easy” an explanation, but the pattern is hard to ignore. Since January, Arsenal have started matches against elite opponents with bristling intensity, then retreated into a shell once momentum swung. City’s second-half master-class—Bernardo Silva and Rodri baiting the press, Rayan Cherki ghosting into pockets, Pep Guardiola’s side refusing to press high yet suffocating every passing lane—left Arsenal looking like a team waiting for something to go wrong. Kepa Arrizabalaga, deputising in goal, was culpable on the second goal, but the collective drop-off was systemic.

History hovers over these moments. In 2011, Bacary Sagna told reporters Arsenal were “no longer scared” of the big occasion; 48 hours later a calamitous mix-up between Wojciech Szczesny and Laurent Koscielny gifted Birmingham an 89-minute winner and detonated a young squad’s belief. It took three more years—and an FA Cup comeback from 2-0 down against Hull—for Arsenal to feel the weight of silverware again. Arteta, lifting that trophy as captain in 2014, called it the moment players realised “I want more of this.” The current generation, forged around the granite centre-back pairing of William Saliba and Gabriel, insists it is made of sterner stuff. Sunday tested that claim and found it wanting.

Still, perspective matters. Guardiola labelled Arsenal “the best team in England this season, no doubt,” and City’s own inconsistencies—three separate runs of back-to-back defeats, two sequences of three games without a win—underline how fine the margins are. Arteta’s side responded to previous setbacks with sequences of 18, 12 and 14 matches unbeaten. The manager’s message in the Wembley tunnel was characteristically bullish: “We’ll use this fire in our belly to have the most amazing two months we’ve ever had together.”

The calendar offers no hiding place. A Champions League quarter-final against Sporting CP and an FA Cup tie at Southampton precede the seismic Premier League visit to the Etihad on 19 April, a match that could yet decide the title. Win there, and Sunday becomes a footnote; slip again, and the old questions will roar back louder than ever. Arsenal are no longer the flaky ensemble of popular caricature, but until the first trophy is lifted, the verdict remains suspended. Losers? No. Chokers? Not really. Winners? The clock is ticking.