Arsenal broke their hoodoo against Bolton Wanderers when they triumphed 3-1 after extra time in their FA Cup fourth-round replay last night. After three successive defeats at the Reebok Stadium, Arsène Wenger, the Arsenal manager, was thrilled finally to emerge victorious from one of his least profitable venues.

Wenger and Sam Allardyce, his opposite number, have not enjoyed the most cordial of relationships in recent years, but, after a helter-skelter match, the sniping subsided. If not quite a love-in — it was Valentine’s Day, after all — at least the rival managers could pay respect to their opponents.

“It was an electric game with exceptional pace and I can’t believe the amount of chances we had,” Wenger, whose side play Blackburn Rovers in the fifth round at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday, said. “We have seen some superb football tonight and both sides went for it.”

Arsenal missed two penalties, through Gilberto Silva and Júlio Baptista, but still had enough in reserve to fend off Bolton’s late fightback. “Who would believe it?” Wenger said. “Two Brazilians missing penalties. I can’t believe it. But even though we didn’t seem to be able to finish the game off, we responded well to those setbacks and it was still a good performance. We also responded well in extra time and we showed a lot of maturity. But as long as it was only 1-0 to us, Bolton were always going to be a threat.”

In the prematch build-up, Allardyce claimed that Wenger used mind games by encouraging his players to accuse their opponents of time-wasting, thus putting pressure on the referees. However, Wenger refused to rise to the bait. “No, I do not know about these psychological things,” he said.

“I felt that the way we approached the game was perfect. I don’t think there was any psychological handbrake in our heads. Maybe we wanted to force the ball too much.”

Allardyce has had an advantage over Wenger since the Frenchman’s arrival in the Premiership 11 years ago. In 14 meetings in league and cups, Arsenal had won only four times. However, Allardyce had to concede second best last night and he did it with good grace.

“That was one of the most bizarre cup-ties of all time,” Allardyce — whose central defender, Tal Ben Haim, was sent off in extra time — said. “We had missed three good chances before they scored their goal and then we hit a post in extra time.

“But I have to give Arsenal credit for their second goal. It was a great run by [Jérémie] Aliadiãre and a terrific finish from [Fredrik] Ljungberg. That was right out of the top drawer. You can’t do much about that.

“In fact, it was a terrific game of football all round. Sadly, it wasn’t us who came out on top. But at least we’ve shown that we can compete with the big boys even when we’ve got a few of our better players out injured.

“We can also get back to the main job, which is trying to cement our place in the Uefa Cup by a high finish in the Premiership. We’ve got the team to do that and at least we can concentrate on that now.”