This had felt like the end and everybody inside Wembley knew it. Even Arsène Wenger appeared to concede as much afterwards. "If we had gone out," the Arsenal manager said, "it would have been questioned tremendously. We knew that it was a turning point of our season. To go out would have been very different."
As the minutes ticked down after Jordi Gómez's nerveless second-half penalty and Arsenal looked empty on so many levels – particularly pace and invention – it seemed as though we were witnessing the final turn of the torturer's wheel. After 17-and-a-half years, Wenger's reign was unravelling. The decision to substitute Lukas Podolski was booed; the Arsenal fans had wanted Yaya Sanogo to go.
Wenger appeared powerless, overwhelmed by the emotion and the pressure and the nagging fear that he no longer has the answers. The consequences of FA Cup semi-final defeat stood to be grave, taking in the block to silverware, the psychological frailties and begging the question, with the club mired in their annual fight for a top-four finish, as to whether there has been progress this season. Is Wenger busting a gut merely to stand still and, if so, will he do the honourable thing in the summer, when his contract expires?
Arsenal's escape was equally dramatic and the scenes that followed Per Mertesacker's equaliser will live long in the memory, as will those after Santi Cazorla's winning kick in the penalty shootout. Mertesacker, who had conceded the penalty for Gómez with a lunge at the excellent Callum McManaman, slumped to his knees before face-planting into the turf. Wenger's switch to a more direct 4-4-2, with Sanogo and the substitute Olivier Giroud up top, had made the difference.
The relief was immense and it contrasted with Wigan Athletic's despair. Uwe Rösler's team will now look to cement their place in the Championship play-offs and no one would want to face them in a Wembley final. This was their fourth visit to the national stadium in 12 months, after last season's FA Cup semi-final and final victories over Millwall and Manchester City respectively, and the Community Shield defeat against Manchester United, and it is fair to say that their blend of drive and discipline has found a home here. They were so close to a famous backs-to-the-wall upset.
For Wenger, though, the questions have hardly gone away and the biggest one concerning his future will shadow the club through their final five league fixtures and to the FA Cup final on 17 May. If there was the sense on Saturday evening that Wenger had dodged a bullet, then matters remain on a knife edge.
Arsenal's deficiencies against Wigan were so worrying that they will not be papered over by the late burst which began with Bacary Sagna heading against the post on 81 minutes and the substitute Kieran Gibbs drawing a brilliant save out of Scott Carson one minute after that. Wenger's team had sleepwalked towards the abyss and there was a draining familiarity to the narrative.
The quest for Champions League qualification resumes at home to West Ham United on Tuesday and it was lost on no one at the club that Everton won at Sunderland to move to fourth place and bump Arsenal down to fifth.
"I believe we can do it but we need to win all our remaining championship games because if we don't, then I don't think we will do it," Mikel Arteta, the midfielder, said. Podolski did not pull his punches. "When you don't play in the Champions League, it's a disaster," the forward said.
Podolski was fuming at his substitution, walking off very deliberately before aiming a lazy kick at a water bottle in the technical area. "Of course I am not happy to always come off and watch from the outside," he said. "You cannot be happy with this situation."
Wenger now faces a dilemma over his goalkeeper for the final, with the shootout hero Lukasz Fabianski, who has started every domestic cup tie of the season ahead of the first-choice, Wojciech Szczesny, saving from the Wigan substitutes Gary Caldwell and Jack Collison.
"I will definitely be disappointed if I don't play," Fabianski said. Like Sagna, the Pole is out of contract in June and he is expected to leave, meaning that the cup final could be his swansong.
Wenger's most pressing issue is to patch up his players for West Ham. Many of them were stricken by cramp while Nacho Monreal was forced off through injury and Arteta reported a calf problem. At least, Laurent Koscielny is in line to return from calf trouble.
"It's a concern how fresh we will be," Wenger said. The same may be said of him.
Man of the match Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (Arsenal)
