Vanquished by half-time, but victorious at the end, Arsène Wenger celebrated an astonishing victory in the Capital One Cup last night.
The Arsenal manager may have mocked the importance of the competition, and it looked like his team had adopted the same mantra for some of the fourth-round tie, before they staged a memorable comeback from four goals down inside 37 minutes.
Theo Walcott, who scored in the closing seconds to send the game into extra time, lashed home a rebound to complete his hat-trick and put Arsenal 6-5 into the lead in the 121st minute after Pavel Pogrebnyak’s header looked to have ensured a penalty shoot-out. Marouane Chamakh, who had drilled Arsenal into the lead for the first time, 13 minutes into extra time,