The Ivory Coast centre-half rose to power in his winning header from a Martin Petrov corner nine minutes from the end of extra time in a City of Manchester Stadium struggle last night.
For the record, Skipper, your last goal for Arsenal before moving to Manchester this summer - and your only one of the season - came in March against West Bromwich Albion at The Hawthorns.
Toure’s decider came after an earlier corner yielded an equaliser for Gareth Barry. He said: “We’d talked about scoring from set-pieces beforehand - but it was the ones we conceded in the derby!
“It was my first for the club and I’m really pleased for the team, because we definitely didn’t want it to go to penalties. I can’t remember my last one - I’ve not scored for a long time.”
Mark Hughes admitted that City’s players had not practised penalties before needing extra time to squeeze past the stubborn Londoners into the last 16 of the Carling Cup.
Hughes’ Blues twice won nerve-jangling penalty shoot-outs in the UEFA Cup last season but also crashed out of the Carling Cup 3-5 on spot kicks at Brighton in the second round.
City’s boss said: “No, we didn’t practise - I wasn’t anticipating it would go that far! But the best-laid plans and all that. Thankfully it didn’t come to that because it’s always a lottery.
“Was that one we might have lost last season? Quite possibly. We had to dig in. They came to frustrate us and their guy (Zoltan Gera) has never scored a goal like that in his career.
“I thought we showed a lot of courage and patience. Hopefully we’ll be stronger in the next round in terms of the personnel we can call upon.”
