A surprise defeat to Fleetwood, 84 places below Arsenal in the football pyramid, was made worse by the Gunners’ under-21 side beating AFC Wimbledon, who are in a higher division than the hosts, in the EFL Cup on the same night.
The first incident of the match occurred with less than two minutes on the clock, play was stopped for more than eight minutes and choked on the pitch.
Perhaps Arsenal should have taken this as a warning.
Arteta named an experimental side and made his debut with 18-year-old Ceadach O’Neill, 17-year-old Marley Salmon at centre-back, 16-year-old Dowman on the wing and goalkeeper Illan Meslier also making his first start for the club.
But the Gunners have covered that inexperience with experienced internationals such as boss Jurrien Timber, Piero Hincapie, World Cup winner Martin Zubimendi, Champions League winner Kai Havertz and Victor Gyokerez.
All these players played a big role in the “ballers” winning the Premier League championship last season.
However, even after the £75m signings of captain Martin Odegaard and bench player Bruno Guimaraes, Arsenal have underperformed.
“First of all congratulations to Fleetwood for getting through to the next round. The way they did it and it’s a very sad day for us.” Arteta said of the result.
“There’s nothing to criticize the players for their behaviour, their application. The determination – you could see it was there from the start.
“Even with 10 men, we conceded a lot of bad goals and that gave them a bit of a boost.”
Defeat in this competition is not the Gunners’ first, but it means they have not won the League Cup for 33 years.
In 2012, Arsenal lost on penalties to League Two side Bradford City and in 2015 they were beaten by Championship side Sheffield Wednesday at the same stage.
With Dowman now suspended, Saka out for around six weeks, Tzolis working towards a return and Arteta announcing after the match that Madueke is unavailable with injury, his options in wide areas for Sunday’s match with Liverpool look slim.