Arsenal are out of the League Cup in the fourth round. On Tuesday night they drew 1-1 with Fleetwood Town and lost the shootout 5-3. Fleetwood are 18th in League Two, the fourth tier of English football. According to ESPN and PA, this is the first time in the competition’s history that the reigning Premier League champions have been knocked out by a fourth-tier side.
For FPL, the bigger story is who was missing. Neither Declan Rice nor Riccardo Calafiori played. Both carry a 75% flag into Arsenal’s Sunday trip to Liverpool, and the Gameweek 9 deadline is on Saturday.
How the match went
- Mikel Arteta made nine changes from Saturday’s 2-0 win over Everton. Only Myles Lewis-Skelly and Viktor Gyökeres kept their places. Illan Meslier made his debut in goal.
- Play stopped almost immediately for about eight minutes because a drone was flying over the stadium.
- Aaron Loupalo-Bi, on loan from Fulham, put the hosts ahead in the 21st minute.
- Martin Ødegaard and Ben White came on at half-time. Gyökeres equalised in the 50th minute, his first goal of the season according to ESPN. Ceadach O’Neill, making his first senior appearance, set it up.
- Max Dowman was sent off in the 85th minute for kicking out at an opponent.
- In stoppage time Fleetwood goalkeeper Jay Lynch saved from White and Ødegaard. In the shootout he saved from Bruno Guimarães, and teenage defender Conor Haughey scored the winning penalty.
Arsenal lost last season’s final and last won this cup in 1993. Fleetwood reached this round by beating Sheffield United 1-0, which we covered in our third-round review.
Rice and Calafiori: two question marks
Rice was substituted in the 80th minute of Saturday’s game against Everton. After the Fleetwood match, Arteta said the midfielder had felt a problem in that game and that was why he took him off. So it was an injury, not a rest. According to Goal, Rice trained with the squad on Monday, but his place at Anfield is not guaranteed. Overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday the game gave him a “75% chance of playing” flag without naming the injury.
Calafiori has had a 75% flag since Saturday (hip). Arteta confirmed he missed the cup game through injury. Noni Madueke (ankle, 75%) was also out, and Bukayo Saka has been injured with no return date since the Champions League match against Bayern.
Arsenal in FPL: who played on Tuesday
| Player | Ownership | Our rating | In the cup | Status in the game |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calafiori | 51.4% | 83 | did not play (injured) | 75% (hip) |
| Raya | 45.7% | 72 | did not play | no flag |
| Gabriel | 22.8% | 86 | did not play | no flag |
| Konsa | 20.3% | 81 | about 15 minutes | no flag |
| Ødegaard | 17.5% | 86 | second half | no flag |
| Rice | 12.5% | 83 | did not play (injured) | 75% |
| Saka | 8.4% | 77 | did not play (injured) | injured, no return date |
| Havertz | 5.7% | 78 | full match | no flag |
| White | 4.6% | 79 | second half | no flag |
| Gyökeres | 3.1% | 64 | full match, scored | no flag |
| Bruno Guimarães | 2.4% | 72 | about 15 minutes, missed penalty | no flag |
Cup points do not count in FPL. The table does show who Arteta was saving for Sunday: Gabriel and Raya did not play at all, Ødegaard and White only played the second half, and Konsa came on late.
The timing problem
The Gameweek 9 deadline is on Saturday 31 October at 11:00 UK time. Liverpool v Arsenal kicks off on Sunday 1 November at 16:30, 29.5 hours later. Team news only arrives an hour before kick-off, so you have to decide on Rice and Calafiori without knowing whether they will play.
It is also a tough fixture, rated 4 out of 5 for both sides. In our captain picks for Gameweek 9 the highest Arsenal player is Ødegaard, only 10th (risk 22, upside 40). Haaland leads the list (risk 15, upside 87), with City at home to Brighton.
Liverpool have their own problems. Szoboszlai is injured with no return date and Wirtz has a 75% flag. They also play Chelsea in the League Cup tonight, so they will have one day less to recover before Sunday than Arsenal.
What to do with Calafiori and Rice
- If you have a playing bench option in the same position, you do not need to act now. If either of them misses out, the game will bring your substitute on automatically.
- If you are making a transfer anyway, consider moving Calafiori on. Almost 300,000 managers have sold him this week, second only to João Pedro. Arsenal’s unflagged defenders are Gabriel (£7.9m) and Konsa (£4.7m), but they play in the same tough game. The highest-rated cheap defender in the game is Tottenham’s Van Hecke (89, £4.9m), who is at home to Crystal Palace.
- Do not take a -4 hit just to remove Rice or Calafiori before one match. A 75% flag means the game rates them more likely to play than not.
Max Dowman, sent off on Tuesday, is suspended in the game until 29 November. He is owned by 0.1% of managers, so for most of you it changes nothing.
More cup ties tonight
- Manchester City v Brighton, 19:30. The same teams meet again in the league on Saturday.
- Bournemouth v Aston Villa, Fulham v Crystal Palace, Sunderland v Brentford, all at 19:45.
- Liverpool v Chelsea, 20:00. Cole Palmer serves his red-card suspension here.
- Thursday: Everton v Newcastle, 19:45.
We will look at who played how many minutes before Gameweek 9 in Thursday’s “who to buy” guide. The full injury list is in our Injury Centre.
Gameweek 9 deadline: Saturday 31 October, 11:00 UK time.
This article was prepared with the help of AI from match reports (ESPN, PA), Mikel Arteta’s comments (Goal, Standard Sport via Yahoo) and official Fantasy Premier League data from 28 October 2026, then edited and checked by our team.