A Flashback to the Joint Highest-Scoring Match in League Cup History: Reading 5-7 Arsenal
The date? Tuesday, October 30th, 2012, Madejski Stadium.
The game? Reading vs Arsenal, 4th Round of Capital One Cup (now the EFL Cup).
The Score? Reading 5-7 Arsenal.
When all was said and done, it was the joint highest-scoring match in League Cup history, and what a match it was.
It all started so well for Reading. Somewhat incredibly, they were four goals up by only the 37th minute; Jason Roberts, a Laurent Koscielny own goal, Mikele Leigertwood and Noel Hunt gave the home side a seemingly insurmountable advantage early on.
Had Reading made it to half-time with that same scoreline, perhaps things would have turned out differently - but when Theo Walcott stabbed home in first-half injury time to make it 4-1, it encouraged a psychological shift in both sets of players.
The rest, as they say, is footballing history.
Olivier Giroud made it 4-2 midway through the half before Koscielny scored in the right end - from Arsenal's perspective anyway - to make it 4-3.
And at which minute did Koscielny grab his goal?
The 89th.
But Reading just couldn't hold on. With the winds in their proverbial sails, Arsenal got the equaliser shortly after, through Walcott again, with mere seconds left of injury time. It was now 4 apiece and still, anyone's game...
Extra-time would prove a microcosm of all that had preceded it, a fitting 30 minute epilogue to a story already filled with so much drama as to be fit to burst.
The Moroccan Marouane Chamakh made it 5-4 to the Gunners in minute 103; incredibly, Reading's Russian, Pavel Pogrebnyak, then made it 5-5. Lest we forget, Reading's previous goal in the game came in the 37th minute of the first-half, meaning 78 minutes had passed since then:
Never had an hour and 18 minutes felt more like a century.
With dreaded penalties looming, Walcott practically ensured this most wondrous of games wouldn't end in the anti-climax that inevitably comes with most shoot-outs; grabbing his hat-trick in the 120th minute, the game was already up when Chamakh nabbed a cheeky lob in injury-time.
Reading 5, Arsenal 7.
With the two teams squaring up once again on Tuesday evening (same competition, albeit under a different name and this time it's at the Emirates), who's to say what might happen this time.
Still, it must be said the omens don't make great reading for Reading; they have lost all 13 previous encounters with the North London side in all competitions and the last two times Reading reached this stage of the competition, they have been eliminated by?
Yep. Arsenal.
STILL. Hope springs eternal.
Arsene Wenger will make some changes to the team that drew with Middlesbrough over the weekend, with various youngsters like Rob Holding set to come in. £17.1m forward Lucas Perez is also a certainty to start.
Meanwhile, Reading travel to the Emirates after ending their four-game winless run with victory over Rotherham on Saturday.
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