Manchester City won the first trophy of the Pep Guardiola era on Sunday, brushing Arsenal aside 3-0 in the EFL Cup final with the help of an old-fashioned route-one goal from Sergio Aguero.
It was an impressive statement of intent from Guardiola’s team at Wembley after a shock FA Cup defeat to lowly Wigan last week ended their bid for an unprecedented quadruple.
City opened the scoring in the 18th minute when a long punt upfield from goalkeeper Claudio Bravo was controlled by Aguero, who coolly lifted the ball over a helpless David Ospina in the Arsenal goal.
Captain Vincent Kompany doubled the lead in the second half with just over half an hour to go and David Silva put the game out of the reach of Arsene Wenger’s team.
The runaway Premier League leaders will be hoping to use the victory as a springboard to greater glory as the season approaches its final stretch but defeat for Wenger means he has never lifted the League Cup.
3 – No manager has lost more League Cup finals than Arsene Wenger (2007, 2011 and 2018), level with Alex Ferguson (who also won the trophy four times). Hoodoo. pic.twitter.com/eg92R1Ifba
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) February 25, 2018
“It’s important. We’re so happy, and a big congratulations to all of Manchester City, and our fans. This trophy is for Manchester City and not for me,” Guardiola told Sky Sports.
“The first half we were not good, there were a lot of mistakes, in the second half we played with a lot more courage and personality — we were outstanding.”
