Arsenal have been booted out of the EFL Cup for starting toddlers in their quarter-final tie against Southampton.

The Gunners were trailing 0-2 in the first-half of their League Cup tie before word swept the Emirates that they had infants playing in a number of key positions.

At an average age of one and a half, the infants were comfortably ineligible to take part in top-level professional football fixtures.

It wasn’t until around forty minutes after kick-off that anyone noticed, upon which the match was thrown into disrepute and immediately abandoned.

Suspicions were aroused when away fans’ chants of “who the f***ing hell are you?” were met with replies of “goo goo, ga ga”.

And the cat was well and truly out of the bag when someone pointed out that they had dummies in their mouths and clearly lacked positional awareness.

To pile on further misery, the toddlers failed to be the successful dribblers you might expect.

Speaking exclusively to Football Burp, Southampton manager Claude Puel remained philosophical.

He said: “Every time I think I’ve stumbled on the magic formula of setting up a team without Charlie Austin, it turns out we’re playing babies.

“I’m bloody sick of it.”