Tottenham Hotspur won the English beer match at Wembley yesterday because, at the last, a Dane was able to find a part of the ground that no other player had been able to reach, leaving Leicester City to reflect on the wisdom of continuing to approach these occasions with a larger mentality.
Allan Nielsen's goal, headed in the third minute of stoppage-time, took the English League Cup to White Hart Lane and reinforced George Graham's reputation as a winning manager. Thus Graham, at the end of his first season in charge of Spurs, has dug foundations similar to those he laid at Arsenal, where the winning of the League Cup in 1987 had also followed hard on his arrival.
Whether Tottenham will progress to winning Premier League championships, as Graham's Arsenal did, it is far too early to say. Certainly no clues were offered at Wembley yesterday, apart from the fact that Graham's Tottenham showed a not unfamiliar indefatigability of spirit in winning an important match after being reduced to 10 men early in the second half.
Justin Edinburgh's dismissal in the 63rd minute warranted little argument. After being fouled by Rob Savage, the Spurs left-back rose to his feet and cuffed the Leicester player with his right hand. The referee, Terry Heilbron, showed Savage the yellow card and Edinburgh the red.
Previously, only Manchester United's Andre Kanchelskis had been sent off in a League Cup final, and on that occasion in 1994 United lost 3-1 to Aston Villa. As Edinburgh trudged away, older Leicester supporters, remembering how the loss of the injured Len Chalmers in the 1961 FA Cup final had helped Tottenham complete the Double, may have felt that belated justice was about to be done.
Certainly at that point Leicester seemed about to impose their will on the game. Muzzie Izzet and Neil Lennon were getting a grip on the midfield and Steve Guppy was starting to advance on the left, while on the opposite flank the two Robs, Ullathorne and Savage, were continuing to deny David Ginola anything more than a peripheral role in the proceedings.
Leicester, however, turned out to be more disconcerted than their opponents by Edinburgh's dismissal. Once they had an extra man they did not appear to know how to exploit the situation.
Nevertheless, Tottenham won just when Graham must have been planning how to cope in what would have been an exhausting period of extra-time for his depleted side. But whether Leicester would have scored after losing Emile Heskey, suffering from a long-term back injury, in the 75th minute had to be open to doubt.
Two years earlier Martin O'Neill's team had won this cup by beating Middlesbrough 1-0 in a replay after sharing a 1-1 draw of similar drabness to yesterday's game. For a pub match the football would not have been without merit, but for a major final at Wembley it was a profound disappointment.
The problem for the spectacle was that for the most part Leicester achieved what they set out to achieve while Tottenham were unable to offer a positive response. The tight marking of Ginola was expected, yet Spurs had no alternative to plying the Frenchman with passes in the hope that eventually he would outwit his jailers.
On a few occasions Ginola did manage to use his pace to escape Ullathorne and Savage, but for a long time little happened in the Leicester goalmouth to disturb the lofty command of Matt Elliott, Steve Walsh and Gerry Taggart. Five minutes before half-time Steffen Iversen did manage to meet Darren Anderton's free kick with a sharp downward header that Kasey Keller saved at the near post, but for too long that was the sum of Tottenham's attacking efforts.
In hustling the man on the ball and denying him space to play effective passes, Leicester did their job well, but when they had possession themselves their movements struggled to get behind Spurs' defence. Heskey and Tony Cottee lacked support, and when in the first half Cottee and Savage combined to send Heskey through a gap, Ramon Vega was able to get across and tackle before the striker could shoot.
The occasion clung to these scraps of excitement until Edinburgh's departure, followed by some further spats with Savage, at least enlivened the atmosphere. After Ian Marshall had replaced Heskey, Leicester came no closer to scoring than the moment four minutes from the end when Cottee just failed to meet a rebound after Ian Walker had parried Savage's shot.
Wembley was looking at its watch when Iversen, released by Les Ferdinand's quick pass to the right, suddenly surged past the Leicester defence before producing a low centre which the diving Keller could only knock up with his right hand. Nielsen ducked in to nod the ball over the line and Tottenham had won a poor final, memorable only for its finish.
Leicester's full-back Frank Sinclair was left out of the team for "a breach of club discipline". It is believed that Sinclair, a £2 million signing who scored for Chelsea in last season's win over Middlesbrough, missed a team meeting on Friday evening. Martin O'Neill said he had no intention of taking the matter further.
Tottenham: Walker, Carr, Campbell, Vega, Edinburgh, Anderton, Freund, Nielsen, Ginola (Sinton 90), Ferdinand, Iversen. Subs Not Used: Armstrong, Dominguez, Young, Baardsen. Sent Off: Edinburgh (63). Booked: Vega. Goals: Nielsen 90.
Leicester: Keller, Savage (Zagorakis 90), Guppy, Elliott, Taggart, Walsh, Ullathorne, Izzet, Lennon, Heskey (Marshall 75), Cottee. Subs Not Used: Arphexad, Campbell, Kaamark. Booked: Elliott, Savage.
Referee: T Heilbron (Newton Aycliffe).