Arsene Wenger says Arsenal EFL Cup Final loss was 'self-inflicted' after Shkodran Mustafi mistake

Arsene Wenger bemoaned a “self-inflicted” defeat after watching Manchester City outclass Arsenal on the way to a 3-0 win that saw them lift the EFL Cup.

From the moment Shkodran Mustafi allowed Sergio Aguero to burst in behind and lob David Ospina, the defender claiming he had been pushed, victory against the Premier League leaders looked beyond Arsenal.

Beforehand, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang spurned a double chance after Jack Wilshere led a rare counter but as soon as Aguero put City ahead it was a matter of how many they could rack up.

Vincent Kompany and David Silva struck early in the second half to secure a convincing win that leaves Wenger zero-for-three in League Cup finals, but the Arsenal manager is convinced that his side gave away the game in the opening period.

“We will go home very disappointed,” Wenger conceded. “I feel a little bit that everything went against us. We self-inflicted our punishment.

“We had an unbelievable chance at 0-0. We gave them a goal. That was 1-0. We were a bit unlucky in these second half, even if we didn’t start at all well and were punished.”

Kompany doubled City’s lead 12 minutes into the second period, though a Claudio Bravo mis-kick briefly gave rise to hopes the Gunners might be handed a way back into the tie.

Instead, City’s defence doubled their lead when Kompany turned in Ilkay Gundogan’s shot for the edge of the area. However, Wenger claimed that Leroy Sane, stood in an offside position, had disrupted David Ospina’s view.

“The second goal is offside,” Wenger said. “I don’t know who sat in the VAR, but it’s a mystery for me how you can watch that on replay and not give offside. After it was game over and City controlled the game and were better than us. Well done to them.”

In truth it is hard to see how Sane could have been adjudged to have interfered with Ospina’s ability to play the ball. The Colombian was already diving to block Gundogan’s strike before the ball deflected off Kompany and into the other corner.

Wenger offered up no complaints about a scoreline that accurately reflected City’s domination of a match where Arsenal went 44 minutes without a shot on goal, though he blamed his side’s defence for the goals they conceded.

“You can never say you’re not disappointed when you concede goals the way we did,” he added. “There was no need to make the corner on the second goal. You take the good and bad as a manager. That’s part of the game.”