Arsenal 3-2 Cardiff City
The FA Youth Cup Sponsored by E.ON
Sixth Round Proper
7pm, Monday 19 February 2007
Emirates Stadium

Arsenal surged into the Semi-Finals of The FA Youth Cup with a stirring win over Cardiff in front of eleven thousand fans at the Emirates Stadium on Monday evening, with a fantastic hat-trick from Jay Simpson.

For Simpson he also has the added credit of the first hat-trick at the new home of Arsenal, but for the visitors they can look back on a game in which they ran the Gunners very close.

Simpson opened the scoring early on but Arsenal were pegged back almost immediately when Aaron Ramsey struck. Then, in a frantic spell before the break, Simpson restored the lead, keeper Lee Butcher turned away a Matt Smith penalty and the hat-trick hero completed his treble.

Unsurprisingly, there was no let up from the visitors in the second half and although Cardiff’s Kyle Bassett ensured yet another tense finish, experience of similar situations earlier in the competition meant Arsenal knew how to hold on.

Incredibly,the match had to be delayed by 15 minutes due to the large number of people outside Emirates Stadium trying to buy a ticket. In the end a remarkable 11,610 made it through the turnstiles.

Despite the grandeur of their stage it didn’t take the home side long to settle and Nacer Barazite had already flashed a shot across the face of goal when on 12 minutes Simpson turned quickly to fool his marker in the box. The striker looked up and simply slid the ball past the advancing Cardiff keeper Josh Herring.

Just two minutes later Mark Jones was first to the ball after a rebounded Cardiff shot had looped back towards goal. The striker’s measured effort cannoned off the post but Ramsey was on hand to smash the visitors level from six yards.

Cardiff’s hitherto impressive defence was caught flat-footed as Simpson sprang the offside trap to calmly round Herring and slot home from an angle.

But Arsenal have never made things straightforward in this cup run and almost immediately Paul Rodgers tripped Jones and the visitors were awarded a penalty. Butcher, the hero of the Fifth-Round shootout against Bristol City, guessed correctly and produced a magnificent save to push Smith’s firm effort onto the post.

If that wasn’t a timely enough boost, Simpson’s superb solo effort to complete the hat-trick was the perfect end to his first 45 minutes at the Emirates. Again no flag was raised as he raced through and this time Simpson threw Herring with a series of stepovers before tapping into the empty net.

Abu Ogogo, Kieron Gibbs and Simpson all passed up further chances to test Herring and, with nine minutes remaining, and Arsenal’s Semi-Final place looking assured, there was yet another twist.

Matt Smith got the better of Rodgers down the left and made amends for his earlier spot-kick failure by squaring for Bassett to hook home.

Arsenal held out however, and their reward is a two-legged Semi-Final against either Manchester United or Birmingham City.