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Unai Emery to win Carabao Cup? The trophy eluded Arsene Wenger

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Will Unai Emery succeed where Arsene Wenger failed at Arsenal and lift the League Cup?

Emery’s Arsenal face rivals Tottenham on Wednesday with a place in the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup at stake. It’s a competition that the Gunners never won under Wenger despite a serious of near misses.

Wenger’s time at Arsenal yielded three Premier League titles and no fewer than seven FA Cup triumphs, but this domestic trophy eluded him.

There has been much focus on Emery’s fine record in the Europa League but with Arsenal one win away from the last four perhaps there is another piece of silverware he could help with too.

Here, we take a look at five occasions when Wenger almost won the trophy…

No team has ever won the domestic treble but Arsenal went mighty close in the 1997-98 season. This was the campaign that saw Wenger win the Premier League for the first time and the FA Cup was secured with a 2-0 win over Newcastle at Wembley.

But long before that, their League Cup campaign had stalled at the semi-final stage when Arsenal were beaten by Chelsea 4-3 on aggregate. Despite winning the first leg 2-1 at Highbury, Wenger’s side went down 3-1 at Stamford Bridge, ending their hopes.

The Gunners were back in the League Cup semi-finals six years later – the season in which they won the Premier League without losing a single game. Unfortunately, they were not invincible in this competition, beaten 3-1 on aggregate by eventual winners Middlesbrough.

At this stage, Wenger was fielding much-changed sides in the League Cup – a very different Arsenal beat Boro 4-1 in the Premier League match that fell between the two legs. But Martin Keown’s red card in the second game ended their ambitions of winning it.

Arsenal reached the final of the League Cup for the first time under Wenger in 2007, having won their semi-final in extra-time against rivals Tottenham. They were unable to finish the job at the Millennium Stadium, though, losing to Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea.

The day had looked like belonging to Theo Walcott when the teenage forward scored his first goal for Arsenal in the early stages, but Didier Drogba went on to steal the show by scoring twice to give a vastly more experienced Chelsea side a 2-1 victory.

Birmingham did score first but Van Persie equalised before the break and the expectation was that Arsenal would go on to win their first trophy in five years. But hapless defending allowed Obafemi Martins to score an 89th-minute winner in front of 88,851 at Wembley.

It would have been a satisfying end for Wenger if he could have bowed out with a long-awaited League Cup winners’ medal as well as a first European trophy. But Atletico Madrid denied Arsenal in the Europa League and Manchester City stood in their way at Wembley.

Sergio Aguero gave City the lead in the 18th minute after further goals by Vincent Kompany and David Silva ended the game as a contest long before the end. As a result, Wenger’s 22nd League Cup campaign ended as the other 21 had – in defeat. Will Emery be able to change that?

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