Odion Ighalo and Adlene Guedioura struck as Watford ended Arsenal’s two-year reign as FA Cup holders with a brilliant 2-1 quarter-final victory at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday.
Ighalo put Watford ahead in the 50th minute before Troy Deeney teed up Algerian winger Guedioura to slam a right-foot screamer into the top-right corner, with Danny Welbeck’s 88th-minute reply coming too late.
Triumphant in the FA Cup in 2014 and 2015, Arsenal were beaten in the competition for the first time since a 1-0 fifth-round defeat by Blackburn Rovers in February 2013.
It left them facing the prospect of a trophyless season, with Arsene Wenger’s side — booed off at the final whistle — eight points off the pace in the Premier League and 2-0 down to Barcelona ahead of Wednesday’s Champions League last 16 return leg at Camp Nou.
The status of that tie encouraged Wenger to field his strongest available line-up against Quique Sanchez Flores’s Watford, who are currently 14th in the Premier League.
Yet while the presence of Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil helped Arsenal dominate the opening 45 minutes, the home side were unable to find the cutting edge that would have turned their superiority into goals.
Watford were forced to defend in numbers from the opening moments and were fortunate to benefit from a marginal offside call when Olivier Giroud finished smoothly from Sanchez’s pass.
But Arsenal had only themselves to blame for their failings in front of goal, with Mohamed Elneny guilty of missing two excellent opportunities to open the scoring.
The Egypt midfielder found himself in space inside the penalty area in the 30th minute after being picked out by Per Mertesacker’s pass, only to lose composure and slice his shot well wide.
Then four minutes before the interval Elneny was presented with a second good shooting opportunity, but again hurried his effort, this time firing well over.
