Sorry City fans, though. This is not one of those occasions. Because as overpowering as Pep Guardiola’s blue machine was at Wembley, the Gunners only have themselves to blame for their rank humiliation.
The fact they do not have the first idea how to mount a properly regimented defence has long been known. But who suspected they would completely forget how to pass a football, too?
Indeed, if City were really on top of their game, this would have been an annihilation. As it was, it was only after half-time that they even bothered to turn to screw.
By that stage the game had already been handed to them on a plate by muddled thinking, poor execution and the type of schoolboy defensive horror-show which once again highlighted how Wenger has allowed his once Invincible army to rot from the core.
The foundations the Frenchman built his early success on were set in stone – the early pillars of Tony Adams, Martin Keown and Steve Bould carefully underpinned by the recruitment of Kolo Toure and Sol Campbell.
Since then it has been folly – in the true Victorian architectural sense. Too many embellishments and decorative whimsy, in the shape of attractive attacking midfielders. No attention to what it is which enables the whole edifice to stand up in the first place.
Which is why Arsenal took to the hallowed turf of Wembley built on the flimsy underpinning of Calum Chambers, Shkodran Mustafi and Laurent Koscielny.
The fact there were three of them – Wenger admits he prefers just two centre-back – was a sign of overdue panic at how vulnerable his creation can be. But however many pieces you put in there, they are no good if they don’t do their job. And none of them did.
How you get a World Cup medal allowing a goalkeeper’s boot upfield sale over your head as Mustafi did in the 18th minute is anybody’s business. You certainly don’t win a Carabao Cup gong, as from the moment Sergio Aguero held his ground, took the ball down and dinked it over David Ospina, the game had already gone from Arsenal.
They had started brightly enough in the eighth minute could even have taken a surprise lead – Aaron Ramsey poking the ball through to Mesut Ozil only for Kyle Walker to distract Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s low cross-cum-shot.
But once behind, Arsenal completely lost their ability to retain possession as City mobbed them at every turn. They tried to show they cared, by clattering into their opponents at every opportunity and City were happy to meet that fire with some of their own.
As a result, the first half was a scrappy and untidy affair, ill-fitting of a contest between two sides whose managers are considered the greatest aesthetes in the beautiful game. But frankly that was no concern for Guardiola.
He had been locked in a long conversation with Wenger immediately after the opening goal that ended in a handshake and a pat on the back. It was mutual respect, but the City manager must have sensed that the battle was already being won.
Arsenal were sent out a good two minutes ahead of their opponents but it was City who were quickest on to the front foot and they seemed to have taken the extra moment or two to shift up a gear.
Inevitably, there was a Claudio Bravo moment to survive – the City goalkeeper always seems to have at least one calamity in him and thankfully for him Aubameyang could not take advantage when he rushed from his goal to completely miss his kick.
Four minutes later it really was all over. If the opening goal was a pathetic piece of individual defending, this was an abject collective abomination.
Kevin De Bruyne side-footed a corner to Ilkay Gundogan on the edge of the Arsenal area without a challenge in sight and his shot was redirected by Kompany to wrong-foot Ospina and double the lead.
The third was only a matter of when, not if. Chambers, in his last horror-show before being unceremoniously withdrawn, was spun round in a circle by David Silva, who chose the 64th minute to open finally his EFL Cup account for the club.
Enough was enough, it seemed. City retreated into their shells ahead of a rematch on Thursday – one they can enter in full expectation of a similar superiority. Sadly for Arsenal, that gap in class is palpable.
This will not be the biggest trophy Guardiola will win at City. He could still land two bigger pots even this season.
But as the gold ticker-tape swamped the City players moments after their Arsenal counterparts stumbled up the steps for their loser’s medals, one cannot imagine Wenger ever seeing success here again.