We take on Manchester City in the 2026 Carabao Cup final at Wembley, looking to lift the trophy for the third time in our history.
Having defeated Port Vale, Brighton, Crystal Palace and Chelsea, we will now face Pep Guardiola’s side on Sunday, March 22, for a shot at winning the first major trophy of the 2025/26 season.
But when did we last lift the trophy? It came back in April 1993, in dramatic fashion.
when did Arsenal last win the league cup?
After a trophyless campaign the year before, the 1992/93 season marks a special occasion in our history as we became cup kings.
The first of those triumphs came in the League Cup, where we defeated Sheffield Wednesday back at the old Wembley on April 18, 1993.
The run to the final and to glory almost fell at the very first hurdle when we took on Millwall over two legs in the second round of the competition.
After a 1-1 draw at Highbury, we then played out the same scoreline at the Old Den before prevailing 3-1 on penalties.
We needed a replay at Highbury to knock out Derby County in round 3 before a 1-0 win over Scarborough, and a 2-0 victory against Nottingham Forest put us into the semi-final and a two-legged contest with Crystal Palace.
A 3-1 win at Selhurst Park was followed up with a 2-0 win at home to clinch a final spot for the first time since 1988.
Read more
Quiz: Name the XI from our last League Cup success
who scored in the 1993 league cup final?
We took on Sheffield Wednesday, a Premier League side at the time, and the winner of the competition just two years prior in 1991.
The day started well for the Owls at Wembley as John Harkes netted after just eight minutes.
However, 12 minutes later, we were back on level terms as Paul Merson lashed home from outside the box.
Merson then turned provider for defender Steve Morrow, who finished clinically from close range to turn the game around and hand us the our second League Cup trophy.
Just one month later, we were back at Wembley for the FA Cup final where we came up against familiar opponents.
We took on Sheffield Wednesday once again and after a 1-1 draw in the final, a replay was needed to decide the outcome. The replay was poised at 1-1 until the 119th minute when Andy Linighan popped up with the winner to ensure we would have both domestic cups in our trophy cabinet.
Read more
April 18, 1993: Morrow wins League Cup
How did we reach the 2026 League Cup final?
We’ve come close to winning the competition on a number of occasions since 1993.
Our first time back in the final was in 2007, when Theo Walcott netted his first-ever goal for us. But it wasn’t enough as Chelsea edged the final in Cardiff 2-1.
We lost out in the 2011 and 2018 finals to Birmingham and Manchester City, but eight years on, we have returned to face City once more.
Our pursuit of a third League Cup started at Port Vale, where Ebere Eze netted his first Arsenal goal in a 2-0 victory over the Valiants.
Ethan Nwaneri and Bukayo Saka proved too much for Brighton in round 4 before we needed penalties to knock out Crystal Palace, as Kepa Arrizabalaga denied Maxence Lacroix from the spot.
We then faced Chelsea over two legs at Stamford Bridge. Ben White, Viktor Gyokeres and Martin Zubimendi helped us to a 3-2 away win, before Kai Havertz slotted in late on in the second leg to win 1-0 and 4-2 on aggregate.
Read more
Arsenal to reach 250 League Cup matches
Copyright 2026 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.
