all hail the doncaster rovers

after taking down aston villa and stuart pearce's mighty manchester city, doncaster rovers reached the quarter finals of the carling cup against a struggling arsenal side. and did they shrivel up, roll over and die? nope. they fought like a genuine premiership side and almost handed the arse their fourth straight loss.

lucky for all us gunners they fell short.

if you were lucky enough to see it, it was quite a game. doncaster opened the scoring in the fourth minute off a brilliant shot by michael mcidnoe. he took a perfect one touch pass that beat djorou and slipped his shot under the arms of manuel almunia (the only pseudo-mistake of almunia's brilliant night).

arsenal couldn't do a damn thing about the about the one - nil lead until deep into the second half. doncaster played brilliantly to hold off arsenal's teenagers (who are playing as well as the old guys right now), particularly their back four. it was a brave defensive display, and even the goal by owusu-abeyie, which deflected off of sean thornton's foot, wasn't a clean chance for the young gunners.

that put the teams all square and forced the game into extra time. but at the 104th minute phillipe senderos, one of arsenals only senior players, misplayed a cross from mcindoe and, rather than clearing the ball, he teed it up perfectly for paul green who just popped the ball into the back of the net. suddenly it was two - one for the hosts and the teenagers were in serious trouble.

but arsenal's man of the match (in my opinion), emmanuel eboue, led a charge down the right, shooting across a perfect cross for the sprawiling captain -- gilberto -- who put the ball in during the last minute of extra time. bam! onto the penalty shots.

and once we were there it was all over for brave doncaster. two saves by almunia and one shot off the post put doncaster out of the running.and now we face wigan over the next two legs. the arsenal boys are taking a lot of heat for their celebration at the end of the game, but i think that's totally unfair. sure they danced and celebrated: only gilberto, hleb and senderos are senior regulars. these kids were playing their hearts out against a determined and difficult doncaster side. some, like bendtner, gilbert and larsson had their first real shots at the big time, and they held it together enough to advance. and all this ignores the fact that the senior team has been taking a beating everywhere, which put incredible pressure on the youth team to perform. plus, they are reported to have done a lap of the grounds at clapping for the doncaster fans. that sounds pretty classy to me.

anyway, regardless of what happened for arsenal, i'm going to raise a pint tonight for the doncaster rangers. those boys can hold their heads high.