![\"League](\"https:\/\/www.afcbetting.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/league-cup-trophy.png\")
![MacMoreno<\/a> | commons.wikimedia.org – CC BY-SA 4.0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nFor a club with as much silverware as Arsenal, their tally of just two League Cups is rather poor. The simplest explanation for their relative lack of success is that they have come unstuck in the final so often. They have made the showpiece game eight times and no club has lost as many EFL Cup finals as the Gunners. An unwanted record but a record nonetheless!<\/p>\n\n1968: Lost 1-0 to Leeds United<\/strong><\/li>\n1969: Lost 3-1 to Swindon after extra time<\/strong><\/li>\n1988: Lost 3-2 to Luton<\/strong><\/li>\n2007: Lost 2-1 to Chelsea<\/strong><\/li>\n2011: Lost 2-1 to Birmingham City<\/strong><\/li>\n2018: Lost 3-0 to Man City<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\nLosing to a strong Leeds side in 1968 was no embarrassment, whilst defeats to Chelsea and City can also be easily understood. However, many Arsenal fans will still be scratching their heads as to how they managed to go down in the final against Swindon, Luton and Birmingham City. Had they won those three, five wins in the competition overall would feel a lot more respectable.<\/p>\nArsenal Give the Rest a Head Start<\/h3>\nAnother explanation for the club\u2019s record in the EFL Cup is that they were a little late to the party. The first EFL Cup final took place in 1960\/61 but Arsenal did not even enter it until the 1966\/67 campaign. It did not become an obligation for Football League sides to enter the new competition until 1971 and for the first six seasons Arsenal, perhaps strangely, chose to throw their lot in with the Floodlit Cup instead!<\/p>\nThat competition was played between 1955 and 1960 but few clubs took part, mostly from the south of the country and the Midlands. When the EFL Cup was introduced, the Floodlit Cup ceased to exist but the Arsenal board felt that the new tournament was “an interim step towards league re-organisation” and so opposed it. Had the Gunners been on board with the League Cup from its inaugural edition in 1960\/61, perhaps they would have another piece or two of silverware in their cabinet but who knows?<\/p>\nArs\u00e8ne Gives the\u00a0Kids a Chance<\/h3>\nOne final explanation for the club\u2019s EFL Cup record is that for a long period under Ars\u00e8ne Wenger the competition was largely used to rest the core squad and try out younger players. Wenger managed Arsenal from 1996 to 2018, taking charge of over 1,200 games. He won three league titles and an amazing seven FA Cups with the club.<\/p>\nBut Wenger rather believed that the EFL Cup was a hindrance and only provided extra, unwanted fixtures in an already hectic English schedule. As such, he routinely made wholesale changes to his team, giving a number of youth players their first Arsenal appearances in the competition. Given just how good the Gunners were for much of Wenger’s reign, and his record in the FA Cup, we have to assume the club would have won at least a couple more EFL Cups had the French boss taken the competition more seriously.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arsenal are undoubtedly one of the biggest and best clubs in English football – sorry (not sorry), Tottenham fans. They have won the FA Cup a record 14 times, with Man United (12) the only other team in double figures \u2013 with Spurs six behind having mustered eight wins. What\u2019s more, their 13 top-flight league … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":419,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.afcbetting.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.afcbetting.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.afcbetting.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.afcbetting.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.afcbetting.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.afcbetting.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":421,"href":"https:\/\/www.afcbetting.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions\/421"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.afcbetting.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.afcbetting.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.afcbetting.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.afcbetting.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:League_Cup_Trophy.png\"){kind=link}
For a club with as much silverware as Arsenal, their tally of just two League Cups is rather poor. The simplest explanation for their relative lack of success is that they have come unstuck in the final so often. They have made the showpiece game eight times and no club has lost as many EFL Cup finals as the Gunners. An unwanted record but a record nonetheless!<\/p>\n
- \n
- 1968: Lost 1-0 to Leeds United<\/strong><\/li>\n
- 1969: Lost 3-1 to Swindon after extra time<\/strong><\/li>\n
- 1988: Lost 3-2 to Luton<\/strong><\/li>\n
- 2007: Lost 2-1 to Chelsea<\/strong><\/li>\n
- 2011: Lost 2-1 to Birmingham City<\/strong><\/li>\n
- 2018: Lost 3-0 to Man City<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Losing to a strong Leeds side in 1968 was no embarrassment, whilst defeats to Chelsea and City can also be easily understood. However, many Arsenal fans will still be scratching their heads as to how they managed to go down in the final against Swindon, Luton and Birmingham City. Had they won those three, five wins in the competition overall would feel a lot more respectable.<\/p>\n
Arsenal Give the Rest a Head Start<\/h3>\n
Another explanation for the club\u2019s record in the EFL Cup is that they were a little late to the party. The first EFL Cup final took place in 1960\/61 but Arsenal did not even enter it until the 1966\/67 campaign. It did not become an obligation for Football League sides to enter the new competition until 1971 and for the first six seasons Arsenal, perhaps strangely, chose to throw their lot in with the Floodlit Cup instead!<\/p>\n
That competition was played between 1955 and 1960 but few clubs took part, mostly from the south of the country and the Midlands. When the EFL Cup was introduced, the Floodlit Cup ceased to exist but the Arsenal board felt that the new tournament was “an interim step towards league re-organisation” and so opposed it. Had the Gunners been on board with the League Cup from its inaugural edition in 1960\/61, perhaps they would have another piece or two of silverware in their cabinet but who knows?<\/p>\n
Ars\u00e8ne Gives the\u00a0Kids a Chance<\/h3>\n
One final explanation for the club\u2019s EFL Cup record is that for a long period under Ars\u00e8ne Wenger the competition was largely used to rest the core squad and try out younger players. Wenger managed Arsenal from 1996 to 2018, taking charge of over 1,200 games. He won three league titles and an amazing seven FA Cups with the club.<\/p>\n
But Wenger rather believed that the EFL Cup was a hindrance and only provided extra, unwanted fixtures in an already hectic English schedule. As such, he routinely made wholesale changes to his team, giving a number of youth players their first Arsenal appearances in the competition. Given just how good the Gunners were for much of Wenger’s reign, and his record in the FA Cup, we have to assume the club would have won at least a couple more EFL Cups had the French boss taken the competition more seriously.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arsenal are undoubtedly one of the biggest and best clubs in English football – sorry (not sorry), Tottenham fans. They have won the FA Cup a record 14 times, with Man United (12) the only other team in double figures \u2013 with Spurs six behind having mustered eight wins. What\u2019s more, their 13 top-flight league … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":419,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.afcbetting.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.afcbetting.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.afcbetting.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.afcbetting.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.afcbetting.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.afcbetting.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":421,"href":"https:\/\/www.afcbetting.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions\/421"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.afcbetting.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.afcbetting.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.afcbetting.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.afcbetting.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- 1969: Lost 3-1 to Swindon after extra time<\/strong><\/li>\n