'It was painful!' - Mikel Arteta wants Carabao Cup success to avenge Arsenal's previous trophy failures ahead of Chelsea semi-final

Arsenal and Chelsea will renew hostilities on Wednesday night at Stamford Bridge in the first leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final. The Gunners head into the match amid a fine season that sees Arteta's men six points clear at the top of the Premier League, safely into the fourth round of the FA Cup and also top of the Champions League group standings. Arteta has managed just to win just one trophy in his time in charge of Arsenal so far, claiming the FA Cup in 2020, but is hoping it will be a different story this time around.

Speaking ahead of the contest, Arteta has urged his team to learn from last season's semi-final defeat to Newcastle and see off the challenge from Chelsea. He told reporters: "That's the mission. Hopefully we'll learn from last year because it was painful, especially the manner that the games went and the amount of chances that we missed not to go through. But hopefully this year we are better and especially more efficient. The more you are involved in these kind of games, the better because it gives you a nudge. It brings the team a different kind of energy and it gives you the sense that the objective is very, very close and that's a massive motivation for everybody. We know that we are two games away from playing a final. We have to go game by game, and the first one is Stamford Bridge, and we know we have a really tough opponent in front.

"I know that [to go far in this competition] you have to be better than the opposition tomorrow and that’s what we have to do. The rest is not in our control, so we have prepared the game really well. The boys are really motivated and at it because we can sense that that’s where we want to be and we have to make another step in order to achieve what we want and that’s the objective tomorrow."

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Arteta also offered an update on Kai Havertz and whether he could be in line to face former club Chelsea after returning from injury. He added: "Obviously we missed him a lot. A year is a long time in football but as you said, the way he’s come back, he looks really fit, really confident. He’s such an intelligent player that straight away he is someone who connects with the players really naturally, and you can tell how much they love him as well, because every time he was in and around the box, everyone was jumping on their seats on the bench. So yeah, we are so happy to have him, he’s going to help us so much, and now we have to keep him fit. We have to manage his minutes now, but he had a good block of 20-25 minutes the other day. He trained really well again today, it’s now a case of building his robustness and make sure that he’s available for every game."

Arsenal's game against Chelsea continues a hectic run of fixtures for the Gunners. Arteta's side still have to face Nottingham Forest, Manchester United and Leeds in the Premier League in January as well as Inter and Kairat Almaty in the Champions League. The Gunners will then welcome Chelsea for the second leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final tie after those fixtures, with the winners going on to face either Newcastle or Manchester City in the final.