Reading 5 Arsenal 7 League Cup. What a night.

On 30 October 2012 Arsenal went four down in a league cup match against Reading.   This is how commentator Gf60 saw it.

Reading 5 Arsenal 7  League Cup

by Gf60

I wonder how many Gooners decided to have an early night and gave it up after about 45 minutes? I was one for the first time ever, but fortunately remembered a Scouse mate who went to bed at half time when L’pool were 3-0 down in the Euro Cup Final. Driving to work the following morning he noticed a newspaper placard saying Liverpool Win Thriller. Shocked, he leant back to be certain that he’d read correctly and ran his very expensive Merc into the back of a bus.

In all honesty I cannot remember any Arsenal side that played so pathetically in that first half. It wasn’t lack of effort so much as pure amateurishness. Really they made the Gasworks Secondary Modern School’s 4^th XI look good.  [Now, come on, I won’t hear a word said against my old school and the team I played for with such devotion – Tony]

I thought that as the real first team struggled to beat bottom of the league QPR, perhaps with the injury list we have, this cobbled together patchwork side could hardly be expected to perform against a side 3^rd from bottom. Even people like Jenks who’s performed so steadily this year looked poor. Real ring rust and boots laced together affected a few more and several of the much younger players looked as though they were wondering if a better future might await them at Barnet reserves.

Through all this disaster the travelling Gooner contingent were magnificent. Even when singing “We want our money back”  or “We want our Arsenal back” they drowned the home crowd and possibly were the reason that the team started to realize that they weren’t just letting themselves down but these devoted fans. Whatever, the two players who had shown some enthusiasm, Theo and Andrey, (Surprise, surprise) linked up to make it “only” 4-1 down at half time.

The second half started in similar fashion, Reading moving faster and thinking quicker but then Giroud and Eisfeld came on to replace Frimpong and Gnabry, neither of whom had enjoyable evenings, and the fun started.

Andrey was running his socks off and having his best game for over two years, Olly was a massive force in both his positioning and off the ball running, young Eisfeld looked sharp and intelligent and Theo was Theo without many of the irritating bits.

Even with Olly’s header though it still looked as though we were going out but those 2 goals in the last minutes of normal time and (thanks Kevin Friend) the last, last second of a generous amount of added time brought the crowd what it deserved, the players the respect they’d earned and the chance to sing “4-0 and they mucked (?) it up” as opposed to having it sung at us by bar-code supporters.

The barminess continued. A Marouane goal, a Reading equalizer (how dare they?) and then another from Theo and then, did you see the blue moon?, another from Marouane which really was icing on the cake.

An unbelievable night…more surprising than that 6-3 at Anfield a couple of seasons back…. for sure I can’t remember us pulling back a 4-0 deficit let alone pulling it back and winning…and for sure a 12 goal aggregate Arsenal game hasn’t happened since the 1930’s 6-6 draw at Leicester.

Oh what a night.

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