Arsenal's torrid run under Mikel Arteta continued on Tuesday night as they were beaten 4-1 by Manchester City in the quarter-final of the EFL Cup. 

It's been a miserable few weeks for Arteta and the rising pressure continued to intensify against his former employers. 

Both sides fielded close to full strength teams with a place in the last four firmly in mind, but City's class eventually showed in a rampant second-half display in which they notched three goals through Riyad Mahrez, Phil Foden and Aymeric Laporte. 

The cup clash did hand Pep Guardiola and Arteta an ideal opportunity to include some of their fringe players, with Cedric Soares, Gabriel Martinelli, Runar Runarsson, Zack Steffen and Oleksandr Zinchenko all getting a rare opportunity to impress. 

However, there was no place for William Saliba in Arsenal's starting XI. 

The 19-year-old has started six times for the U23 side this season but is yet to make his senior debut having fully joined the club at the conclusion of the 2019/20 season. 

Expectation over Saliba's potential has been rising since his arrival was first confirmed in July 2019. 

He immediately returned to Saint-Etienne on a season-long loan deal after signing for the Gunners, but his 36 career appearances in Ligue 1 don't seem to have convinced Arteta that he is ready for the challenges of English football just yet. 

His absence was a major talking point last night and one that the Spaniard was pushed to comment on post-match, though his explanation for Saliba's omission left fans with more questions than answers.

According to journalist James Benge, Arteta confirmed Saliba couldn't play because "he wasn't in the squad".

The French centre back, however, is eligible for the squad as he is registered on the Premier League U21 list. 

Perhaps this was simply Arteta's blunt way of dismissing the question and a sign of frustration at the media's insistence on unpicking his selection decisions rather than an oversight of the rules, but that didn't stop the supporters on Twitter from tearing into him. 

The Gunners faithful turned out in their numbers to express their frustration, with many alluding to the increasingly erratic nature of his press conferences of late. 

Take a look at how the fans reacted to his explanation below: