Stoke City twice threw away the lead at home to Reading before coming through on penalties.
Lita miss sees Stoke advance after 2-2 draw
Stoke City twice threw away the lead at home to Reading before coming through on penalties at the Britannia Stadium.
Reading striker Leroy Lita missed the decisive spot-kick for the Championship club after an entertaining 2-2 draw in the Carling Cup third round.
Vincent Pericard headed Stoke into an early lead before Reading equalised on the stroke of half-time through James Henry's penalty.
Mamady Sidibe regained the lead for the Potters five minutes into the second half only for Henry to level for the second time in the match.
Henry saw his spot-kick saved in the shoot-out and, after Pericard scored, Lita smashed his penalty over the bar to send Stoke through.
Inept defending
Stoke took control in the ninth minute thanks to a combination of aerial aggression and inept defending.
Liam Lawrence swung in a dangerous corner from the left flank and Pericard showed far greater desire than any Reading player to plant a firm header past stand-in goalkeeper Adam Federici.
Royals midfielder Bobby Convey then thrashed a vicious 25-yard strike into Steve Simonsen's midriff in the 18th minute but seconds later Stoke almost doubled their advantage.
Federici failed to deal with a high bouncing ball as he challenged Sidibe and the ball dropped to Pericard 12 yards from goal.
He struck a first-time shot but his effort was blocked and Reading survived.
Reading had created little but equalised out of the blue on the stroke of half-time when Andre Bikey went down under a challenge from Danny Higginbotham and Henry converted coolly from the penalty spot.
Stoke needed only five minutes of the second half to regain their lead and that it came from another set-piece was no surprise to anyone.
Lawrence was again the architect, flighting in another dangerous delivery from the right flank that found its way to Glenn Whelan.
Predatory instinct
The midfielder's shot was blocked and ricocheted into the path of Sidibe, who showed a predatory instinct to lash the ball into the net left-footed from around eight yards.
Reading threatened to respond on the counter-attack when a sweeping move cut Stoke to pieces down the right flank and culminated with Brynjar Gunnarsson's low shot being pushed out by Simonsen and straight to Kalifa Cisse.
Cisse's shot from 18 yards was awful and flew high over Simonsen's bar and into a stand sparsely populated by Reading supporters.
Whelan struck from distance shortly after the hour mark after Lawrence's clever short free-kick found him unmarked but although the uncertain Federici spilled the ball, no Potters player was on hand to tuck away the rebound.
Yet Reading continued to probe as the game wore on and Long's neat lay-off in the 75th minute allowed Henry to stride forward and hit a low left-foot shot into the back of the net from 20 yards.
Lita was then guilty of one of the worst misses of this or any other season moments later when he inexplicably headed Henry's right-wing cross wide from barely a yard out.
Pericard's towering header drew a fine one-handed save from Federici at the other end to take the tie into extra-time, where Scott Golbourne's header was repelled by Simonsen and Potters substitute Fuller volleyed against a post.
That ensured the tie would be decided by a penalty shoot-out and Stoke scored four of their five spot-kicks while Reading could only convert three to ensure they headed home empty-handed.
