By this stage last season, the Gunners were already out having been beaten in the third round by Brighton, but with their side at that stage top of the Premier League, few supporters lost much sleep over the defeat.
Unlike last term, Arsenal are also juggling Champions League football alongside their title aspirations this season and Arteta concedes that the least prestigious of the four major honours up for grabs will not be top of most fans’ wish lists.
“I don’t know if we can convince them,” Arteta said. “If you ask about what the priority would be, it wouldn’t be the Carabao Cup for sure.
“For us it’s more internally how we use it. The amount of work we put in ourselves and how we approach every single game playing for Arsenal Football Club. You cannot approach it in any different way because that’s not respecting the game.”
when asked whether players, too, saw the benefit that an early exit could have in decongesting the fixture list.
“I don’t think the players think like that,” he added. “I think they get really upset when they lose. After you are out you try to look at the bigger picture and say, ‘ Ok, now we’re going to use it in a different way.’ But if you ask someone what they want to do tomorrow, for sure they want to win the game.”
“I don’t think I have three World Cup winners in the squad that can think like this about the Carabao Cup, I might be wrong, but I don’t think anyone can think like that. I think that would be very, very arrogant.”
