Newcastle and their supporters wasted no time mocking Mikel Arteta as Arsenal were knocked out of the Carabao Cup. Goals from Jacob Murphy and Anthony Gordon secured a 4-0 aggregate victory over the Gunners, sending Newcastle to the Wembley final next month, while Arsenal’s hopes of silverware went up in smoke.
With mounting pressure on Arteta to add to his sole FA Cup victory, his earlier complaints about the Carabao Cup ball came back to bite him.
After Gordon’s goal sealed the aggregate win, Newcastle fans quickly broke into song, chanting: “It must be the ball, it must be the ball, Mikel Arteta, it must be the ball.” They also serenaded the Arsenal boss with chants of “he’s going to cry in a minute” as Newcastle closed in on their second Carabao Cup final in three years.
Arteta had previously suggested that the ball used in the Carabao Cup was to blame for his team’s inability to hit the target, claiming: “It’s just different. Very different to a Premier League ball, and you have to adapt to that because it flies differently. When you touch it, the grip is very different as well, so you adapt to that.”
After the game, Gordon urged Newcastle to remain “humble”—a term that had become a fan favorite in the build-up to the semi-final’s second leg—and the club’s social media team shared a photo of the match ball with the caption: “The culprit.”
Newcastle will now await the winner of Thursday’s semi-final between Liverpool and Tottenham to determine who they will face in the final.
Anthony Gordon comment goes viral as Mikel Arteta mocked by Newcastle and fans over past comments amid ‘humble’ request
