The nine trophyless Arsenal and Manchester City players chasing Quadruple, including ‘tired’ Saliba

William Saliba is sick and ‘tired’ of having ‘nothing in my pockets’, with the Frenchman among nine Arsenal and Manchester City players eyeing a Quadruple.

“We want to win everything,” Saliba said after the Carabao Cup semi-final first-leg win over Chelsea . “I think I’m tired to finish the season without nothing in my pockets. My pocket was empty the last year, and now we want to win everything: this cup, the FA Cup , Champions League, Premier League .

“Of course, it’s not easy,” he added. “It’s easy to say it but we want to prove it on the pitch and we give everything to win every title.”

A reminder that Plymouth, Nathan Jones and Chris Armstrong are among those to have either retrospectively or actively brought such Quadruples hopes to a grinding halt . It is vanishingly unlikely to ever be done.

But it is strange that nine entirely trophyless players could start their personal medal collection with four trinkets in one fell swoop, starting with…

The most conspicuous of the trophy dodgers, Saliba’s rise to becoming one of the best centre-halves in the world has not been matched by a surfeit of silverware.

The Frenchman can count a couple of Community Shields among a collection which otherwise only includes a burgeoning list of individual awards and runners-up medals in the Coupe de France and World Cup.

Beyond his keys, a Nicolas Jover set-piece notebook and a similarly expanding catalogue of shackled forwards, Saliba has “nothing in my pockets” as his absurd Arteta-delayed Arsenal ascent was timed after their 2020 FA Cup win.

The chance to bottle a final would be a fine thing. Calafiori has made it as far as the final four five times at senior level but never any further.

A hamstring injury ruled him out of a ludicrous 8-5 Europa League defeat to Manchester United with Roma in 2020/21.

There was heartache with Basel in the Conference League in an extra-time loss against Fiorentina in 2022/23, a month after Young Boys dumped them out of the Swiss Cup.

Then across the Champions League and FA Cup exits to Paris Saint-Germain and Newcastle respectively last season, Calafiori played only 34 minutes for Arsenal .

The Italian did feature in the first three group games of Roma’s run to inaugural Conference League glory in 2022 but that is disqualified on two counts: he was on loan at Genoa when they lifted the trophy; and it was under Jose Mourinho.

While it is inevitable that Lewis-Skelly is yet to win anything with an Arsenal side whose last silverware came more than four years before he made his professional debut, it is perhaps mildly surprising that he has simultaneously missed any and all England age-level crownings.

Lewis-Skelly did skip the U21s and was already with the seniors by the time Harvey Elliott set himself up for a ridiculously hard fall last summer .

And the Young Lions’ victories in 2017 and 2022 came too soon for his brief spell with the U19s. The 19-year-old might be more concerned with his dwindling form than a bare mantelpiece.

As above really, except Dowman made his Arsenal bow more than five years after the Gunners last won a trophy , with his only taste of an international tournament with England ending in a group-stage elimination at the U17 Euros.

“My goal is to win many trophies and give everything for the team and the badge,” said Ait-Nouri upon his £31m move to Manchester City in June.

His effort can be neither quantified nor particularly doubted, and that career “goal” is based on eight diligent years as a professional with no tangible reward beyond a presumably phenomenal credit score.

Ait-Nouri has never even ventured beyond a quarter-final with Angers, Wolves, Manchester City or Algeria. In these more understanding times there should be no mockery at his failure to achieve a semi but that is wild.

It is remarkably unfortunate to make your Manchester City debut in their first trophyless season since the manager’s first in charge not far off a decade before, put it that way.

Had he emerged in another era for Lyon it seems likely that Cherki would have helped Fred, Juninho Pernambucano, Karim Benzema and friends win the sodding lot.

Although Cherki’s spiritual father Hatem Ben Arfa was there for some of that glorious mid-2000s spell so perhaps not.

And Cherki was once the youngest-ever player to feature in a Champions League semi-final so he has come theoretically close to glory.

If there is no trophy lift to cap his debut Manchester City campaign then he can console himself with having won our collective hearts and minds.

His first two appearances for Manchester City have come in both domestic cups and produced a pair of goals and an assist, so it cannot be said that Semenyo is waiting for the trophies to come to him.

That £62.5m fee will have made him one of the most expensive players ever with such a blank C.V. But then a career path of Bristol City to Bournemouth with loans at Bath, Newport and Sunderland does not sound particularly gilded.

Before the Newcastle game Semenyo had only once played at a stage as deep as a quarter-final, and that was for Bournemouth against Manchester City last season. It is not a spotlight he seems particularly perturbed by.