Arsenal's High Motivation to Hunt Treble After Failing in the English League Cup

JAKARTA - Failing to win the English League Cup does not make Arsenal experience a setback. Instead, the failure became a high motivation for Arsenal to hunt for a treble. And, the FA Cup is the initial target, followed by the Champions League.

Arsenal, originally, set a big ambition by winning the quadruple or four trophies in one season. However, the ambition was extinguished in the middle of the road after Arsenal lost 2-0 to Manchester City in the final.

The failure makes Arsenal's ability to win the title questionable due to the mentality factor. They seem to have no champion mentality so they only became runners-up in the Premier League for three consecutive seasons.

Now the big question for the Gunners fans, can Mikel Arteta's team end the title drought of the last six years. Including the failure to win the league title since 2004.

However, Arteta thinks otherwise. According to him, the failure in the Carabao Cup actually gave the team high motivation to fulfill the target of grabbing the next three trophies.

"When you fail to win in the final, what you say to the club's management is, 'Okay, how does this make us stronger when we end the competition?' The problem is the mindset," Arteta said as quoted by france24.

"Yang harus kami lakukan adalah menjadikan ini sebagai motivasi untuk mencapai final seperti yang kami inginkan dan meraih target. Ini yang saya rasakan," ucap Arteta lagi.

Arteta has also evaluated the failure. In fact, not only the English League Cup final but also many other matches. According to him, this overall evaluation makes the team better when entering crucial weeks.

"We are analyzing what has been done. Not only in one match but for the last 120 days. How many matches have we played," he said.

"This makes us better. And we will maximize it to achieve important targets this season," he said again.

Arsenal are in a crucial week after the competition break. They visited the Southampton Championship team's headquarters in the FA Cup quarter-finals. Furthermore, Martin Odegaard et al. face Sporting Lisbon in the Champions League.

Arsenal also has the opportunity to win the league title after leading the standings with a nine-point advantage over Man City who are in second place. However, The Cityzens still have one postponed match. They will also host Arsenal at the Etihad which opens the opportunity for Man City to cut the points gap.

The match against Southampton is obviously not easy even though they face an opponent from the second class. Moreover, some players are still exhausted after strengthening their respective national teams. No less than 10 players are threatened to be absent due to injury while playing for the national team, including three English players, Declan Rice, Bukayo Saka and Noni Madueke.

Madueke suffered a knee injury when England drew 1-1 against Uruguay at Wembley so he was confirmed as absent when Arsenal faced Soton. In addition, Eberechi Eze and Piero Hincapie are doubtful to appear in the match for the ticket to the semi-finals.