By Boris Mellor
March 6 2005

The first half gave no warning of the tremendous match that was about to unfold. True Sheffield nearly scored after 30 seconds, but faced with an empty goal Tonge did a Giggsy.

 About 15 minutes later Ljunberg should have done better with Arsenal’s first clear chance, but it was wide from only yards out.
However it was, mainly, a phoney war of a packed midfield, with little time to play on the ball. Sheffieldwererufflingsomefeathers as Alan Hansen so succinctly slurred. As the Arsenal Times’ team news suggested, might be the case, there was a lack of Gunners mobility. The Ljunberg Lupoli partnership was not working and Arsenal were far too slow. They were not creating chances. Not that Lupoli was to blame, he hardly had a decent pass all half.

Fortunately Wenger could see it was not working, and did something he rarely does, making a change at the start of the second half. Quincy Owusu came on for Lupoli. Almost immediately Arsenal began to attack at high speed. Quincy was brilliant, cruising past two or three defenders at a time, again and again. His technique was amazing, I began to forget about the score, or lack of it rather, and just enjoy the beautiful game.

Arsenal began to camp in the Blades penalty area, with at least six corners in as many minutes. Fabregas nearly broke the Blades cross bar with an outstanding shot from outside the area. Then Sheffield began to hit back and it became a pulsating classic cup-tie, suddenly the game was open with chances for both sides. Kenny pulled off several more great saves, and Almunia saved a powerful header going goalward. But neither team could break the deadlock. So on to extra time, Toure came on for Fabregas. At one stage Kolo and Ashley were in the forward line!

Wenger wanted to win before it got to penalties, bringing on Aliadiere for Flamini with only six minutes to go, the former would have scored in his first minute but for another great save from Kenny. Cygan nearly scored the winner in final minutes, but the ball bobbled across the face of the goal.

So to the penalty shootout, which rarely causes an outbreak of confidence amongst Arsenal fans. The Blades scored the first and nothing had yet happened to disturb any Arsenal pessimists. Then Ralph stepped up and did one of his strange jigging run up penalty’s, one – one. The next penalty was saved by Almunia and Paddy scored the next, two - one. Almunia’s next save was disallowed, two – two. Ljunberg stepped up for number three, three-two. Almunia wasn’t finished yet, and even though he dived the wrong way he blocked the shot with his feet. As Cole stepped up it was three – two, and if he scored it was all over, as indeed it was, four-two and Arsenal celebrated.

It was a great performance; it has been suggested that Arsenal’s foreigners are not up for it – bunkum. This was a classic English cup-tie, both teams played at pace, took no prisoners, and gave as good as they got. Vieira played like a true captain, bellowing at team mates, mixing it, shielding the defence, charging into the Blades area, urging and driving his team through a 120 minutes of football. There was no hesitancy about who should take the penalties. Ralph insisted on being the first, as he is so deadly from the spot, but Paddy took second place so he could stand up and be counted. As he returned from scoring he urged Almunia to save the next one, which he did. I never thought I would live to hear an opposition manager praise our penalty taking skills.

Perhaps it was a good thing our strikers were on leave, after all they are never quite as ruthless as their stand ins at penalties.  Fairplay to Warnock for praising Arsenal, as well as his own team, and saying he hopes we win the cup.

With every senior striker missing this was a potential banana skin, and many had their money on Sheffield, including the BBC 2 pundits. But when the going gets tough the tough get going.