Arsenal's youngsters put on a valiant show against a near full-strength Ipswich side tonight, but in the end showed their lack of experience and went out just as it looked set to go to extra time. No shame in that: Ipswich so far this season have shown themselves well worthy of their place in the Premiership, and we had half a team of teenagers, and half a team of debutants.

Ipswich went ahead in the second minute of the game. Former Spurs man Jamie Clapham made no mistake after being given too much space receiving a cross on the right of the box. Perhaps there was still a tear in the eye of one or two of our defenders, who 2 minutes before had been observing the emotional minutes silence in tribute to Arsenal's sadly departed reserve team coach George Armstrong.

Igors Stepanovs equalised with a superbly taken goal shorly before the break, running across the box to meet Vivas's corner at the near post and deflect it across the keeper and just inside the far one.

The second half was thrilling, and Arsenal had the better of it. But James Scowcroft popped up in the box with a minute to go, and pounced on a ball cleared off the line to turn and drive home a low shot from 5 yards out.

As my friend Adam pointed out, it was quite something to see the flicks and tricks these Arsenal kids were trying. It's not long since we had no-one in the first team who'd be trying those things.! But perhaps they tried too hard at times. The Arsenal first team might have been better at the clever stuff, but also might have concentrated on keeping things simple when the going got hard.

It has to be said, Sylvain Wiltord stood out a mile in this company (both teams). He worked hard, coming back to help out and get hold of the ball when needed and always the biggest threat on Ipswich's goal. He had one stunnign strike come back off the crossbar, and forced Richard Wright into an equally impressive save.

I was surreal night in the Clock End with quite a few season-ticket holders deciding not to come. It's the first time we've sat down this season, and some of the songs were, let's say, not exactly current. I half expected a version of "Nice one cyril" or something like that to start up!

Arsenal:

                Taylor
   Weston (Canoville) Upson Stepanovs Cole
Pennant (Mendez) Vivas (c) Vernazza Volz (Wreh)
             Barrett   Wiltord