For Arsenal and Mikel Arteta, the Carabao Cup final is 'showtime'. A win could launch them into a new era

London – When the Wembley arch lights up on Sunday evening, Mikel Arteta will stride into the technical area knowing the next 90 minutes could redraw the trajectory of his Arsenal reign. The Carabao Cup final against Manchester City is no longer a secondary subplot in a season of wider ambition; it is, as Arteta labelled it this week, “showtime” – the moment a team constructed to win must finally prove it can.

Arteta has seen this trophy’s transformative power before. In February 2018 he stood on the same touchline as Pep Guardiola’s assistant, watching City dismantle Arsène Wenger’s Arsenal 3-0. Guardiola hailed that triumph as the catalyst for the Premier League title that followed three months later, insisting “winning the first one” breeds belief across every competition. Arteta’s message ahead of the reunion with his former mentor is near-identical: “Winning a trophy helps more, for sure. It gives you the feeling that when it comes to that moment, you can do it.”

The stakes resonate through a squad that contains only one survivor – Bukayo Saka – from the 2020 FA Cup-winning side. Since that Wembley victory over Chelsea, Arsenal have added three Community Shields to the cabinet but no major honours, a barren stretch the manager concedes has been “a while”. For a club that last appeared in any final outside those August curtain-raisers on the first day of the pandemic-hit 2020 FA Cup, the wait has become a burden that feeds the “perennial runners-up” tag attached to recent second-place Premier League finishes.

Arteta’s project, however, is no longer the brittle work-in-progress of 2020. Backed by strategic investment, Arsenal have built a squad designed to compete on multiple fronts, adopting a style that prizes points over plaudits. They enter the final top of the league, nine points clear of City, who have a game in hand and a rearranged Etihad date with Arsenal looming on 19 April. The widening gap has diluted suggestions that Sunday’s result will decide May’s championship, yet within the Emirates the view is unchanged: a first piece of silverware since 2020 would release a pressure valve that has tightened with every near-miss.

Goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga, cup-tied in Europe this midweek, spoke for the dressing room in the matchday programme against Bayer Leverkusen: “For us, hopefully this could be a way to open our trophy cabinet – and to keep it open.” The sentiment mirrors the historical template George Graham’s side followed in 1987, when a League Cup triumph over Liverpool ended a seven-year final drought and prefaced a dramatic league title two seasons later. Arteta, wary of looking beyond Sunday, nevertheless acknowledged supporters dream of a similar leap – perhaps even an unprecedented quadruple with the Premier League, Champions League and another cup still in play.

Sunday will also mark Arsenal’s first Wembley appearance in front of fans since the 2018 loss to City; the 2020 FA Cup run unfolded in hollow stadiums. The manager has urged supporters to “find the fun” on the season’s run-in, and a carnival against the team that has denied them so often would provide an emphatic soundtrack.

Yet the subtext is unmistakable: Arsenal must graduate from contenders to winners. Lose and the familiar taunts resume. Win and, as Arteta put it, “it may launch them into a new era”. For a club that has reached two League Cup finals in its history and lost six, the opportunity to flip that narrative has never been more timely – or more necessary.

Kick-off on Sunday is more than a shot at the season’s first silverware; it is the juncture where promise must become proof. For Arsenal and their manager, the Carabao Cup has never mattered more.