Carabao Cup organisers mock Mikel Arteta over match ball comments
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Mikel Arteta has been mocked by Carabao Cup organisers after he suggested the match ball used against Newcastle impacted Arsenal’s defeat at the Emirates. Newcastle took a major step towards booking their place at Wembley with a brilliant 2-0 semi-final opening-leg victory. Alexander Isak extended his remarkable run by netting his 10th goal from nine appearances before Anthony Gordon doubled the visiting side’s lead in the second half.
Arsenal registered 23 shots in all but managed only three of those on target with both Gabriel Martinelli and Kai Havertz missing golden chances to put the ball in the Newcastle net. Speaking after the loss, Arteta moved to illustrate that the PUMA match ball, which is used in the Carabao Cup, is different to the Nike alternative in the Premier League. Prior to the first leg of their last-four clash, Arsenal had scored 11 times in the Carabao Cup this season.
“We kicked a lot of balls over the bar,” said Arteta. “It’s tricky. This ball flies a lot. It’s just very different to the Premier League ball and we have to adapt to that. It flies different, and the grip is very different as well.”. The Carabao Cup X account, which has nearly 600,000 followers, reposted a clip of Arteta speaking about the ball during his post-match press conference – and accompanied it with a meme of US rapper 50 Cent wearing an exasperated expression – in an apparent dig at the Arsenal manager’s comments.
