The inevitable happened to Arsenal last night. It has become almost commonplace this season that a cup match featuring Leicester City should go to a replay, extra-time, or to penalties after extra-time has provided no breakthrough, so from the earliest moments here it was apparent that this was another evening that was destined to go the distance. After all, Leicester's cup-tie record this season reads: played eight, won two in normal time.
Yet here they are in January facing Aston Villa in a League Cup semi-final first leg next Wednesday and, four days after that, Chelsea now await at Stamford Bridge in the fifth round of this competition.
Therefore it was hardly a surprise that after a goalless first 90 minutes dominated by Arsenal, followed by a further goal-free 30 minutes of strenuous extra-time endeavour, Leicester found themselves in familiar territory again. And, for the third time in just over a month, they triumphed. Pegguy Arphexad, a substitute goalkeeper who had come on for the limping Tim Flowers midway through the extra period, saved a second penalty - from Gilles Grimandi - after both sides had scored with five of their first six efforts. Filbert Street erupted, Arsenal had gone the same way as Leeds and Fulham.
Arsenal were distraught, Leicester had had two shots on target in 120 minutes. Davor Suker had missed double that on his own. It was the Croatian's uncharacteristic profligacy that took his team-mates to penalties. Suker scored Arsenal's first, but this became the second competition the Londoners have exited via a shoot-out - they lost at Middlesbrough in December in the same way - and now they can win only one trophy this season, the Premiership. Next up are Manchester United on Monday. Alex Ferguson was here. "It was an ideal scenario for him," Arsene Wenger said ruefully afterwards. "We didn't kill the game when we had the chance."
He could have said "chances" such was Arsenal's gradual assumption of control, although, as Wenger acknowledged, Leicester's obvious priority was defence. "Passive," Wenger called Martin O'Neill's team, "Leicester never really came out. They never had a go at us. I'm not used to seeing games like this in England". Wenger had several points. Unfortunately for him, so too did Flowers.
And yet the game's first chance suggested Leicester's health was typically rude. It fell to Darren Eadie, but his diagonal shot slid a yard wide. Strangely, that was not the herald of a City charge, in fact Leicester chose to play cautiously, utilising the pace of Emile Heskey only once in the first half. It came on the half-hour when Heskey twisted Martin Keown in chasing a Steve Guppy pass. Heskey then sprinted into the area and Seaman saved well, low at his near post. It was the first half of injury time before Seaman made another stop.
Slowly but surely play fell into the beckoning grasp of Arsenal's exceptional midfield pairing of Emmanuel Petit and Patrick Vieira. A flurry of opportunities may not have been the immediate result - it was not until the last 20 minutes of normal time that that happened - but then, even before Heskey's first strike, Leicester were withdrawing 10 men behind the ball, often all of them into the last third of a tight pitch.
In such circumstances creating space is a job in itself and Vieira and Petit sought out Ray Parlour regularly. Approaching the hour, Parlour found Suker unmarked, only for his shot to fly over, though Suker was hardly to blame for what came next - a trio of amazing stops from Flowers and Robbie Savage.
Two of them came from Suker, Flowers pushing one over and the second, from point-blank range, was headed away miraculously by Savage. Suker then wasted another glorious chance and Flowers made astonishing saves from Keown and Vieira before giving way to Arphexad.
Leicester: Flowers (Arphexad 105), Taggart, Gilchrist, Elliott, Guppy (Fenton 71), Gunnlaugsson, Savage, Oakes, Zagorakis, Heskey, Eadie (Campbell 85). Subs Not Used: Goodwin, Jordan.
Arsenal: Seaman, Dixon, Keown, Silvinho, Grimandi, Vieira, Parlour, Petit, Malz (Hughes 68), Suker, Henry. Subs Not Used: Winterburn, Manninger, Luzhny, Barrett. Booked: Malz. Leicester win 6-5 on penalties.
Referee: M Riley (Leeds).
