Newcastle United brutally tease Arsenal and Mikel Arteta with two-word statement after Carabao Cup win

Goals from Jacob Murphy and Anthony Gordon ensured Newcastle progressed to the Carabao Cup final as 4-0 aggregate winners against Arsenal on Wednesday night. They will now face either Tottenham Hotspur or Liverpool in the final on March 16 at Wembley Stadium.

After the match, Newcastle posted an image of the Carabao Cup match ball in the net along with the caption: “The culprit.”

If you know, you know. If you don’t, let us take you back to last month’s first leg at the Emirates Stadium.

Newcastle had just won 2-0 thanks to goals from Alexander Isak and Gordon at Arsenal. But Arsenal head coach Mikel Arteta ended up speaking about the match ball in his post-match press conference.

The Carabao Cup ball is manufactured by Puma and is therefore different to the Nike balls used weekly in the Premier League.

Arteta said after the first leg defeat: "We also kicked a lot of balls over the bar, and it's tricky that these balls fly a lot so there’s details that we can do better.

"But at the end that’s gone, there’s no way back it's about the next game and that’s our world, the reality is our world. It’s just different. Very different to a Premier League ball, and you have to adapt to that because it flies different.

"When you touch it the grip is very different as well so you adapt to that."

The comments weren’t lost on Newcastle fans at St James’ Park on Wednesday night as they aimed a chant directly at Arteta as their side led 4-0 on aggregate.

“It must be the ball, it must be the ball, Mikel Arteta, it must be the ball,” was echoing around St James’ Park as Newcastle strolled to victory.

But Newcastle’s media team, quick to rub more salt into Arsenal and Arteta’s wounds, issued a social media post to poke more fun at the issue as their side now looks ahead to another Carabao Cup final.

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