Arsenal 0 Manchester City 3: Woeful Gunners defending lets Sergio Aguero, Vincent Kompany and David Silva score Carabao Cup final goals

PEP GUARDIOLA won the first trophy of his Manchester City reign thanks to the ‘Old Guard’.

Much has been made of the way the former Barcelona chief has transformed the club since taking charge in summer 2016.

But Sergio Aguero, Vincent Kompany and David Silva – three players with almost 25 years at the Etihad between them – got the goals to win this one.

Arsenal had a good early chance when Mesut Ozil rolled over a cross for Pierre Emerick Aubameyang whose shot was well saved by Claudio Bravo.

He was under pressure from Kyle Walker and he did enough to put the Arsenal new boy off with the rebound too.

Sergio Aguero fired a shot into the side-netting and that turned out to be a sighter for the City hero.

A few minutes later Bravo sent a straight ball down the middle and Aguero shook off Shkodran Mustafi far too easily.

He went through the middle before lobbing effortlessly over David Ospina – who was caught in no man’s land.

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INTERACTIVE STATS – CLICK on the categories to find out how the teams fared 

It was a 30th of the season for Aguero – and his 199th for City.

Aubameyang looked to be through on goal late in the first half but City skipper Vincent Kompany got back to make a superb tackle.

Early in the second half Bravo and Walker got in a mess chasing the same ball but Aubamayeng fouled the City keeper as he tried to get onto it.

INTERACTIVE LINE-UPS– CLICK on a player’s number below to see their stats

And City looked to have made it safe just before the hour as Kevin de Bruyne played a corner to Bernardo Silva on the edge of the box.

His shot looked harmless but Kompany stuck out a boot to wrong foot Ospina and send the fans behind that goal wild.

What a moment for the skipper who has endured such a nightmare few years due to injuries.

And just minutes later it was all over as Danilo slipped through David Silva and he turned Calum Chambers superbly before firing low past Ospina.

Pep Guardiola said: “We’re so happy, and a big congratulations to all of Manchester City, and our fans. This trophy is for Manchester City and not for me.

“The first half we were not good, there were a lot of mistakes, in the second half we played with a lot more courage and personality – we were outstanding.”

Arsene Wenger said:  “You have to accept being criticised when you lose games. But I believe we have to recover quickly. We got to the final, we lost, so now we have to focus on the next Premier League game.”

“When you lose 3-0 of course you have to look at defending better, but I still feel like for large periods we defended well, but we lost concentration sometimes and against good teams you pay for it.

“It’s not the application that was missed it was the concentration at key periods that was missed. The second goal was a big goal in this game and for me, it was 100 per cent offside.

“We analyse all the games in a very mathematical way, we didn’t give too many chances away, but we gave away easy chances, and didn’t create enough for ourselves.”