There won’t be a commemorative dvd, mug or t-shirt, but the memories of the large swathes of the Lane resembling the Marie Celeste will live long in the memory. Of course, it should never have reached the extra half hour which exposed Tottenham’s back up players. The game should have been done and dusted by half-time, but two absolutely shocking decisions from the same linesman created a scoreline that did not reflect the dominance of the visitors for so much of this game.

Kieran Gibbs would have surely converted had he not been incorrectly called offside before half time when clean through. Then, to compound the error, an obviously offside Robbie Keane was allowed to score soon after the interval. I was astounded that Lukasz Fabianski was started in this game as I believed the chances for the Polish flapper were over. If stories that his countryman Sczesny has got fed up of waiting for his chance are true, I can hardly blame him. He should at least be second choice by now. Fabianski proved true to form with a pathetic attempt to keep out Keane’s shot.

Another player I would call time on is Carlos Vela. In spite of Arsenal’s dominating before the interval, he did very, very little. The actual penetrative abilities of the team increased 500% when Chamakh replaced him upfront. It is odd to write critically of players after a 4-1 win, but this game did tell us a lot about individual players. It was open season on Jack Wilshere and it was obvious that he had been targeted in Spurs’ preparation for this game as the player who made the team tick. Having seemed a little tired at Sunderland, I was surprised he was picked for the cup game, but he more than justified his selection. Other standout performers were Nasri, Gibbs and Koscielny. Rosicky had a great first half. Johan Djourou looks like he desperately needs a run of games.

If Arsenal were guilty of anything, it was probably the failure to kill the game when they were totally on top in the first half. They were back to threading the ball through the eye of the needle, and the final pass was often intercepted. I was confident going into extra time as the more space there was on the pitch, the more the visitors could exploit the gaps. However, I don’t think anyone could foresee the game being settled so soon after the extra half hour began.

Tottenham consider themselves real contenders with strength in depth to match Arsenal’s. I think they might revise that opinion now. It was a much stronger team that Arsene Wenger customarily fields in this tournament and I have a sneaking suspicion that the board have informed him that the club do need to win trophies, and that by not bothering in two of the four they enter, they are cheating the fans. We may dismiss this competition, but winning a trophy is vital to this team. Even a League Cup could be a springboard to greater things. The side are trying to scale Everest without even bothering to get a little practice in on Mount Snowdon.

I hope we see a line-up of similar strength in the subsequent rounds and that Arsenal do actually take this trophy credibly. Extra time was highly enjoyable with the game being dead and buried after five minutes or so of the 30. It was a slow lingering death for the home fans, or at least the few hundred that remained to witness the bitter end. There is no better sight in football than Spurs supporters heading in number for the exits long before full time, the huge expanses of empty blue seating as aesthetically pleasing as a Van Gogh canvas. It was a good night to be a Gooner, and if our neighbours decide to use the defence of fielding a weakened team, remind them that Arsene Wenger made eight changes from the side that played at the weekend.