{"id":182,"date":"2026-03-26T18:24:31","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T18:24:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/?p=182"},"modified":"2026-03-26T18:24:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T18:24:31","slug":"arsenal-vs-man-city-ian-wright-names-unbelievable-gunners-star-who-could-have-influenced-final-result","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/?p=182","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal vs Man City: Ian Wright names &#8216;unbelievable&#8217; Gunners star who could have influenced final result"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Following Arsenal\u2019s 2-0 loss to Manchester City in the Carabao Cup final, former Gunners striker Ian Wright has named the unused substitute who could\u2019ve helped Mikel Arteta\u2019s men at Wembley.<\/p>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t to be for the quadruple-chasers as Nico O\u2019Reilly\u2019s quick fire double in the second half saw Pep Guardiola\u2019s Manchester City run out victorious.<\/p>\n<p>Kepa Arrizabalaga, who started in place of first-choice goalkeeper David Raya, slipped up for O\u2019Reilly\u2019s first by dropping the ball but Arsenal\u2019s outfield players failed to pull the Spaniard out of a bad moment.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read More: <\/strong>\u2018Get away with it\u2019 \u2013 Graeme Souness slams Arsenal in furious rant over set-piece tactics<\/p>\n<p>The Premier League table-toppers still have three trophies to win this season, of course, as they look to end their six-year wait for major silverware. But Wright has outlined a mistake made by Arteta on Sunday.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Ian Wright claims unused substitute for the Carabao Cup final could\u2019ve inspired victory <\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The biggest shock of the pre-match news was that Raya was going to be benched in favour of Kepa, Arsenal\u2019s second-choice shot stopper.<\/p>\n<p>Arteta stuck by his decision and Jens Lehmann has implored the midfielder-turned-tactician to keep Kepa inbetween the sticks \u2013 but what he decides to do will become evident on 4 April.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s when Arsenal are back in action \u2013 against Southampton in the FA Cup \u2013 but Wright and The Overlap crew are still talking about the stinging defeat on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>He even mentioned that Myles Lewis-Skelly remaining on the bench may have hurt Arsenal\u2019s chances at success. \u201cI\u2019ve mentioned like, I\u2019ve mentioned Myles Lewis-Skelly when he played against Real Madrid last time, had an unbelievable game,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/media.dave.sport\/readarsenal\/2026\/03\/esme0c1AjDCW-1024x683.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-131830\" srcset=\"https:\/\/media.dave.sport\/readarsenal\/2026\/03\/esme0c1AjDCW-1024x683.webp 1024w, https:\/\/media.dave.sport\/readarsenal\/2026\/03\/esme0c1AjDCW-300x200.webp 300w, https:\/\/media.dave.sport\/readarsenal\/2026\/03\/esme0c1AjDCW-768x512.webp 768w, https:\/\/media.dave.sport\/readarsenal\/2026\/03\/esme0c1AjDCW.webp 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"\/><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cThen he\u2019s kind of been dropped back out of it, and I\u2019m thinking in that game, yesterday, on Sunday, a left-back who can invert what we need is somebody comfortable on the ball.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s the game he should be playing in, because then he\u2019s somebody who can get on the ball, and at least we can link.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Piero Hincapie started the match at left-back and struggled against the pace and power of Antoine Semenyo \u2013 and the Ecuadorian was replaced by Riccardo Calafiori in the 65th minute. <\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Myles Lewis-Skelly\u2019s England chances<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Domestic football aside, could Lewis-Skelly be the answer to England\u2019s struggles at left-back? Luke Shaw is far from reliable and Lewis Hall and O\u2019Reilly both lack experience for major tournaments.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas Tuchel has a tricky decision to make in terms of sorting his 2026 World Cup squad \u2013 and Lewis-Skelly wasn\u2019t picked for the March international break. Wright, however, believes he is as good as O\u2019Reilly:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s no way, Myles Lewis-Skelly, the way he started his career, he hasn\u2019t got the capability to go on and do, I\u2019m not saying he\u2019s gonna do exactly what O\u2019Reilly\u2019s done, but the confidence it gives him in playing is gonna be a lot probably more confident than he is right now.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe can\u2019t get into the team at the moment, whether it\u2019s Hincapie or if it\u2019s behind Calafiori, this guy is a footballer,\u201d the former striker continued.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe needed a footballer on Sunday, and those are the things that I\u2019m sitting there watching us do, watching us do nothing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m thinking to myself, if the Arsenal fans saw someone like him come on and do a couple of things, everybody, it gets us going, it gets people going again. That\u2019s a disappointment for me.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<p>\n          <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Arsenal Shocked by City, Salah\u2019s Liverpool Exit &amp; Trent Snubbed by Tuchel | Stick to Football EP 122\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wehtFZITXRY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n        <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Following Arsenal\u2019s 2-0 loss to Manchester City in the Carabao Cup final, former Gunners striker Ian Wright has named the unused substitute who could\u2019ve helped Mikel Arteta\u2019s men at Wembley. It wasn\u2019t to be for the quadruple-chasers as Nico O\u2019Reilly\u2019s quick fire double in the second half saw Pep Guardiola\u2019s Manchester City run out victorious. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportings.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}