Overview
Arsenal is having a perfect start to the 2026-2027 season and is facing the opportunity to extend their winning streak when facing Ipswich in the Carabao Cup.
The Champions League is often mentioned as a title missing in Arsenal's collection, but the Carabao Cup is also a tournament that brought many disappointments to the North London team. The last time Arsenal won this tournament was more than 30 years ago, when Paul Merson and Steve Morrow helped them defeat Sheffield Wednesday in 1993.
Since then, Arsenal have reached the final 4 times but have all received the runner-up position, most recently the defeat to Manchester City in the final last season. However, Arsenal's journey in the Carabao Cup in recent years has not been too bad. In the last 11 participations, they only stopped once right from the third round, which was a surprise defeat to Brighton in the 2022-2023 season.
Arsenal entered the match against Ipswich with perfect form. They have won all 6 matches since the beginning of the season, including a 2-0 victory over Sunderland. Bruno Guimaraes and Bukayo Saka scored in the second half to bring 3 points for Mikel Arteta's team.
However, Arteta still had reason to be dissatisfied. Arsenal faced a controversial decision when Sunderland was awarded a penalty, a situation that the Spanish strategist described as "unacceptable". Luckily for Arsenal, David Raya played excellently and saved Enzo Le Fee's shot.
That save helped Arsenal have their fifth clean sheet in 6 matches since the beginning of the season. If they beat Ipswich, they will win the first 7 matches of the season, including the English Super Cup, for the first time since the 2004-2005 season.
While Arsenal is too familiar with finishing second in the Carabao Cup, Ipswich has never even participated in a final. Their best record is 4 semi-final appearances, with the most recent being in the 2010-2011 season.
Notably, Arsenal was the team that stopped Ipswich in that campaign. Ipswich surprised when they won 1-0 in the first leg at home, but Arsenal reversed the situation with a 3-0 victory in the second leg.
Ipswich is currently also on a better Carabao Cup journey than most recent seasons. However, their performance in the Premier League is quite erratic, with heavy defeats against Manchester United and Liverpool.
However, Ipswich just created an impressive comeback against Crystal Palace. Being led, they took advantage of the opponent being only 10 people after Axel Disasi's direct red card in the first half. Zian Flemming scored in the 90th minute to seal a 3-2 victory in a dramatic match.
However, the recent history of confrontations with Arsenal does not bring much hope for Ipswich. In the 2024-2025 Premier League season, they lost to Arsenal 0-1 at home before suffering a 0-4 defeat when coming to the opponent's home ground.
Expected lineup:
Ipswich Town: Walton, O'Shea, Diop, Greaves, Davis, Palacios, Nunez, Philogene, Enciso, Maeda, Flemming.
Kepa, Timber, Konsa, Gabriel, Hincapie, Zubimendi, Guimaraes, Madueke, Merino, Eze, Gyokeres.
The match between Ipswich Town and Arsenal takes place at 2:00 AM on September 16 (Vietnam time).
