Arsenal are out of the Carabao Cup. League Two Fleetwood Town drew 1-1 at Highbury Stadium on Tuesday night and won the shootout 5-3, with Bruno Guimarães the only player to miss. Max Dowman was sent off late on. Six fan YouTubers reacted, and the two who don't support Arsenal are having a lovely time.
The facts are not kind. Aaron Loupalo-Bi put Fleetwood ahead after 21 minutes and Viktor Gyökeres equalised early in the second half. Arsenal had 26 shots and 78% of the ball, per BBC Sport. Jay Lynch saved from Ben White and Martin Ødegaard in stoppage time, then kept out Bruno's penalty. Conor Haughey scored the winner. Fleetwood are 18th in League Two, and they are in the quarter-finals for the first time in their history.
Arsenal's attack: 26 shots, one goal
AFTV did the player ratings, and the panel's verdict on the night was simple arithmetic. "Honestly, we had 26 shots. We should be walking away from here winning this game." Even one of the penalty scorers got a two. "I think two is fair."
LeeGunner opens his fan cam with a standing ovation for Fleetwood. Then the diagnosis: "We're toothless in attack. We're rubbish going forward, mate." He thinks the plan to beat Arsenal is no secret now. Keep the ball on the ground, stay compact, and "they defend for their lives and then when they get their one chance, bang, they're clinical."
CalumTalksAFC had already settled his running order. "Kai Havertz, you're going to take up about 5 minutes of today's match reaction. That is how bad you were." He is not a casual critic, either. He has spent weeks arguing Havertz is a better striker than Gyökeres, which Tuesday made hard work. As for the shirt he is wearing: "If I had a six-pack, I would have taken this off by now."
Max Dowman: the red card and Arteta's reaction
The 16-year-old kicked out after a heavy tackle by Harrison Neal and was sent off late on. On this one the rooms disagree.
AFTV landed on tough love: "it was a horrible tackle, but you can't react, Max." Or, more simply: "I love him, but you can't give him a pass for that." Calum went the other way: "Not a red card in my opinion. You can have your opinions." Any 16-year-old would have reacted, he says, and Dowman should have had four assists anyway.
Waffle Don is with Calum on the challenge, which he calls sickening. He was also watching Mikel Arteta as Dowman walked off, and "it didn't look like Arteta was being supportive."
Arteta said afterwards he preferred "to watch it back properly" before judging the red. SaeedTV did not wait. "He's 16 years old," he says of Arteta's reaction. "It's not tough love right there."
Grimsby gets a night off: the rival rooms
Saeed opens with relief: "I needed something to laugh at." Within seconds he is asking who remembers Grimsby, the League Two side who knocked Manchester United out on penalties in August 2025. For once the joke is going the other way. His closing salute is for the opposition: "Fleetwood Town. Take a bow."
CarefreeLewisG checked the League Two table live on camera, found Fleetwood near the bottom and lost it again. His ruling is that Arsenal fans have now given up the right to mention Grimsby to United fans. "This is a humbler." Then he turns to tonight, when Chelsea go to Liverpool in the same round: "Chelsea, you got to do your job." His last word is for Fleetwood. "You have saved football."
The argument: just the Carabao Cup, or a warning before Anfield?
Waffle Don can already hear the "bigger fish to fry" crowd: a smaller cup, fewer games, a cleaner run at the league. He isn't having it: "no one wins a game in a cup and comes out with, 'Well, I wish we weren't in this cup.'"
Arsenal don't have long to change the subject. They go to Liverpool on Sunday at 4.30pm. For a squad that took 26 shots to score once on Tuesday, the problem doesn't change at Anfield. It just gets harder.