Arsenal into Carabao Cup semi-finals after shoot-out win over Palace | OneFootball

A penalty shoot-out was needed to separate Arsenal and Crystal Palace at the Emirates Stadium with the home side eventually booking their spot in the final four.

Arsenal will feel like they should have wrapped up the game in normal time. They certainly had the chances with Gabriel Martinelli a constant threat however, they came up against a goalkeeper in Walter Benítez having 'one of those' kind of games.

Indeed, Arsenal didn't actually manage to beat him at all in normal time – Crystal Palace did.

It was a familiar situation though, a corner whipped in from the right by Bukayo Saka. The ball bounced in the area with Palace unable to clear, instead Maxence Lacroix had the unfortunate last touch before the ball found the net in the 80th minute.

There were chances to really put the game to bed from that point on and Jurrien Timber had an excellent chance that Benítez smothered in stoppage time.

Instead there was another twist as Palace scored a set-piece goal of their own. Adam Wharton sent in a free-kick from deep on the left that Jefferson Lerma headed down with Marc Guéhi on hand to finish from close range.

The game was to go to penalties then with all five of each side's spot-kicks finished with aplomb leaving neither goalkeeper much to go off.

It wasn't until the eight round of penalties that we finally had a winner after William Saliba but his in the corner before Kepa Arrizabalaga got down to keep Lacroix out and send Arsenal into the semi-finals.