Tuesday night’s Carabao Cup fourth round produced the kind of result English football doesn’t see very often. A League Two side, in front of a disbelieving home crowd, knocked out the reigning Premier League champions on penalties. Fleetwood Town’s 5-3 shootout win over Arsenal, after a 1-1 draw, will be talked about in that corner of Lancashire for years. But the story that has kept growing in the two days since has little to do with the scoreline, and everything to do with what happened in the 90th minute.
Sixteen year old Max Dowman was sent off for appearing to kick out at Fleetwood defender Harrison Neal, and the fallout from that moment now stretches well beyond a cup exit. Arsenal are appealing the decision, documents are due with the Football Association by one o’clock this afternoon, and the club are racing to get a ruling before Sunday’s trip to Liverpool, a match with real weight in the title race regardless of who is available to play in it.
A shock nobody at Fleetwood saw coming either
Arsenal travelled to Highbury Stadium, the home Fleetwood have occupied since 1939 and, by pure coincidence, the same name as Arsenal’s own ground for ninety three years before they left for the Emirates. Mikel Arteta made nine changes from the side that started Arsenal’s last Premier League fixture, with Illan Meslier preferred in goal to new signing Kepa Arrizabalaga, Cedric O’Neill given his first start, and Martin Odegaard held back until the second half. Viktor Gyokeres and Kai Havertz led the attack.
Fleetwood deservedly led through Aaron Loupalo-Bi in the 21st minute, and a seven minute stoppage after a drone was spotted hovering over the pitch did nothing to settle Arsenal’s nerves. Gyokeres levelled things five minutes into the second half, bundling home from close range for his first goal of the season, a detail that says plenty about the summer he has had since his move from Sporting Lisbon. Arsenal had chances to win it through Havertz and Ben Lewis-Skelly, and Fleetwood goalkeeper Jay Lynch produced a string of saves to drag the tie to penalties, where Bruno Guimaraes saw his effort kept out and Conor Haughey converted the winning spot kick.
Fleetwood manager Matt Lawlor was refreshingly honest about his side’s method afterwards, admitting his players had not even practised penalties before the shootout. Arteta, for his part, refused to blame his players’ attitude, insisting Arsenal simply lacked the quality in the final third to turn their dominance into goals. Former Arsenal midfielder Paul Merson went further, calling it the biggest shock in League Cup history.
The moment that has complicated everything
The result alone would have been a difficult one for Arsenal to swallow. What happened next made it considerably harder. In stoppage time, with Arsenal down to ten men already looking to hold on, Dowman reacted to a challenge from Neal by appearing to kick out at him amid a brief scuffle, and the referee showed him a straight red card for violent conduct.
As Dowman walked past the Arsenal dugout and down the tunnel, Arteta leaned in and said something to him directly. Asked afterwards what he had told the teenager, Arteta said only that it was “something that we discussed before the game,” declining to elaborate. The moment did not sit well with everyone watching. Merson felt Arteta should have put a consoling arm around a sixteen year old rather than confronting him in front of the cameras, while former Arsenal defender Jobi McAnuff said he struggled to understand the reaction given Dowman’s age.
Arsenal believe the card was harsh and have lodged a formal appeal, but the early verdict from those who know the process well is not encouraging. Former Premier League referee Dermot Gallagher said he expected the appeal to fail, arguing Dowman’s reaction showed clear intent and comparing it unfavourably to a similar incident involving Cole Palmer the previous weekend. Former referees’ chief Keith Hackett reached a similar conclusion, agreeing that Neal’s original challenge was reckless and arguably deserved a yellow card of its own, but suggesting Dowman’s response left the referee with little real choice. Arsenal must have their case submitted by one o’clock today, with a decision expected from the Football Association before the weekend.
Why a few days could matter so much
If the appeal fails, Dowman faces an automatic three match ban covering Arsenal’s Premier League trip to Liverpool this Sunday, a home fixture against Hull City and an away trip to Newcastle United after that. The suspension would not extend to European competition, meaning he would still be free to play against Slavia Prague in the Champions League on 4 November. For a sixteen year old enjoying the kind of season most players never get close to, missing out on a ground like Anfield at this stage of his development would be a genuine blow.
Dowman’s rise over the past fourteen months has been extraordinary even by Arsenal’s recent standards for producing academy talent. Born in Chelmsford and at the club since 2015, he made his senior debut in August last year aged fifteen years and 235 days, already the second youngest player in Premier League history behind his own teammate Ethan Nwaneri. Since then he has broken record after record, becoming the youngest player to appear in the Champions League, the youngest to score in the Premier League, and the youngest player ever to collect a Premier League winner’s medal. Arsenal have built real structure around him off the pitch too, with a club chaperone, protected study time and Declan Rice acting as something of a mentor, all designed to help him cope with attention most teenagers his age could not imagine.
That context matters here. Arsenal sit level on points at the top of the table with Manchester City, with Liverpool six points further back in fourth under new manager Andoni Iraola, but on a run of three straight home wins heading into the weekend. That makes Sunday’s meeting at Anfield a serious test for both sides rather than a routine fixture either can afford to treat lightly. Whether he would have started or been introduced from the bench at Anfield is impossible to say, but losing the option of calling on him at one of English football’s most daunting grounds, at a time when he has rarely looked short of confidence, is not a small thing for Arteta, whatever else is happening elsewhere in his squad.
For now, Arsenal, Fleetwood and everyone else involved are simply waiting. The appeal will either be upheld, in which case a difficult week turns into little more than a bad night in Lancashire, or it will fail, and a sixteen year old already carrying more history than most players collect in a career will have to watch Sunday’s biggest match of the season so far from somewhere other than the pitch.
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