Blackburn Rovers' run without a wit continued in heartbreaking fashion on Tuesday as a young and jubilant Arsenal struck an extra-time winner to dump the Ewood Park side out of the Carling Cup.

Brad Friedel started in net and played the full 90 as usual, but the American will surely not be happy having let in a total of eight goals over the past two games.

In the case of this match, two of those goals came almost immediately. First, it was Abou Diaby's well-struck volley after only six minutes, then Eduardo hit the first of his two goals in the 26th.

However, just as he did three days earlier, Roque Santa Cruz came to the rescue in Blackburn's time of trouble. The Paraguay forward struck for one goal in the 42nd minute before leveling matters at the hour.

Things looked even better for Blackburn after Denílson was sent off for Arsenal in the last minute of regulation.

The man advantage didn't appear to faze Arsenal, who matched Blackburn for pace in the extra period, though they struggled to maintain possession.

None of that mattered, though, as the first half of extra time came to a close with defender Alexandre Song bursting through the center of the field to feed Eduardo, who shrugged off Ryan Nelsen before slotting the winner past a helpless Friedel.

Scoring
ARS - Abou Diaby 1 (Nicklas Bendtner) 6'
ARS - Eduardo 3 (Denílson) 29'
BLA - Roque Santa Cruz 2 (Matt Derbyshire) 41'
BLA - Roque Santa Cruz 3 (David Bentley) 60'
ARS - Eduardo 4 (Alexandre Song) 105'

Line-ups
ARS - Lukasz Fabianski; Philippe Senderos, Justin Hoyte, Armand Traore, Alexandre Song, Denílson, Mark Randall (Nacer Barazite 80'), Abou Diaby, Lassane Diarra, Eduardo, (Kieran Gibbs 116'), Nicklas Bendtner

BLA - Brad Friedel, Stephen Warnock (Zurab Khizanishvili 120'), Ryan Nelsen, Christopher Samba, David Dunn (Aaron Mokoena 105'), Robbie Savage, Steven Reid, Morten Pedersen, David Bentley, Matt Derbyshire (Benni McCarthy 90'), Roque Santa Cruz