EYEWITNESS: ARSENAL 1 BIRMINGHAM CITY 2 

by RICHARD OSLEY

at the CARLING CUP FINAL at WEMBLEY

HOW do you lose a no-lose situation? Arsenal demonstrated how in spectacular style here at Wembley with the prefect of schoolboy errors.

In the grand scheme of things, it shouldn’t have mattered whether or not the Gunners captured a trophy which in recent years they have clearly regarded as beneath them.

Let’s be honest, if they had won the Carling Cup, it would have been no big deal, nice – nothing more.

If they had lost 2-0 to Birmingham in the final to a couple of well taken goals, it wouldn’t have been the world’s worst disaster.

The only way to lose this day was to do what Arsenal did. Awful.

It is difficult to think of a more poorly conceded goal by the club in recent years than the one gifted to Obafemi Martins in the final moments of the match. There was a Nayimish nature to it, the lateness of the hour, the freakish stupidity involved.

The game tied at 1-1 after goals from Nikola Zigic for the Blues and Van Persie for Arsenal, Laurent Koscielny and Wojciech Scezney combined to conjure up one of this club’s greatest cock-ups.

The magnitude of their inefficiency in clearing a simple ball patted into the Arsenal penalty area was dazzling.

Koscielny seemed worried about kicking Scezney’s arm, Scezney distracted by his boot. It bobbled into the path of Martins, who could not believe his luck. There he was rolling in a tap-in, in the final minutes of a cup final.

Even desperately trying to not to sound snobby, this trophy means more to Birmingham than it could ever have done for Arsenal. A place in Europe and decades of failure erased for an industrious team who deserved their good fortune.

They might have won it earlier had Lee Bowyer’s penalty claim in the first minute not been wrecked by a mistaken offside call.

Scezney had brought the midfielder tumbling when through on goal: it should have been a spot kick and a red card.

Arsenal came to life in the second half. Ben Foster made three or four fine saves, but none of them were so outstanding that they suggested the Gunners were close to cracking it. Shots fired in when passes would have been better choices, passes were selected when a shot was called for. Birmingham held strong and were ready for the final mugging.

The reaction to the defeat, however, was as if Arsenal had lost the Champions League final to Spurs.

Some mindless Gunners fans called for Arsene Wenger – the manager who ten days ago masterminded Barcelona’s defeat at the Emirates – to step aside.

It was only the Carling Cup. When tears are shed over that competition – even in the manner of this defeat – the gap between Arsenal and Spurs will continue to blur.