CHELSEA BLAST INTO FINAL, ARSENAL LOOK TO JOIN THEM

 

 

Well, it was supposed to be easy. The more straightforward Carling Cup semi final. Instead, Chelsea found themselves embarrassed at Adams Park in every way possible other than actually losing to a League 2 side, allowing Jermaine Easter to continue his historic run. Having learned his lesson, the Cocky One put out what was pretty much a full strength side for the second leg at Stamford Bridge(including Peter Cech). Wycombe still knew though that with away goals not coming into play untill after extra time, they had a total of 120 minutes of potential glory.

Not that Chelsea were going to allow them that. They came at Wycombe all guns blazing and clearly with something to prove. A Stefan Oakes free kick led to something resembling a Wycombe attacking spell but what dreams the underdogs had started to crumble in the 25th minute when Andrei Shevchenko took advantage of a defensive mistake to surge forward and open the scoring, cutting down Wycombe's time for heroics by half an hour. And in the 40th minute, Eastern Europe's deadliest assasin showed he was finally on his A game after getting set up by Didier Drogba to lob the opposition goalie.

Credit where credit's due, Wycombe did try to come back but the Chelsea goalie kept getting in the way and though the visiting fans were still enjoying the game, the contest was pretty much over in the 69th when Shevckenko lobbed the ball to Frank Lampard who played with the Wycombe defence before sticking the ball in. The Cocky One was just lapping it all up, mission accomplished at then some when Drogba set up Lampard who made it four from a tight angle in injury time.

Elsewhere, well Spurs vs Arsenal is one of the big rivalries in English football. The last time Spurs made the semis in this competition was in the "Worthington Cup" era when a team including Les Ferdinand and Teddy Sheringham beat a pre-Abramovitch Chelsea side 6-3 on aggregate back in '02. The only time Arsene Wenger's taken his Arsenal side this far though was back in '98 and even then the likes of Marc Overmars and Dennis Bergkamp couldn't stop an even earlier Chelsea team win a Coca-Cola Cup semi 4-3 on aggregate. The Gunners did win a Coca Cola Cup semi when George Graham was manager though. 5-1 on aggregate over Crystal Palace with Ian Wright and Alan Smith running the show. The year was 1993.

And now, after the foggy mess at Anfield, this year's second Carling Cup semi final finally got underway. For the first leg at White Hart Lane it looked like it would be Spurs that would be laughing. Martin Jol had put out a full strength side. Arsene Wenger had decided to largely play his reserves yet again. Given what they did against their higher profile Scouse equivilients in the quarters, I suppose I can't blame him. Still, Spurs should have had the edge here.

Well Arsenal had the first attack but then Arsene Wenger learned what happens when you play your reserves in a game like this, Spurs had a solid spell on the front foot and in the 12th minute Pascal Chimbonda sent in a cross and a clueless Arsenal defence allowed Dimitar Berbatov an easy header. Matters were made worse in the 21st minute when Julio Baptista put a Tom Huddlestone freekick into his own net. 2-0 Spurs. Credit where credit's due to Arsenal though, the home side never outright dominated and the Gunners did come close to pulling one back just before half time.

In the second half though, Martin Jol decided to sit back on 2-0. This soon blew up in his team's faces. Arsenal had all of the attacking and so the question became, could Spurs hold out. The answer turned out to be no when Baptista made up for his earlier og in the 64th minute after barging through the opposition defence. Still Jol felt that his side didn't need to attack but the Gunners were obviously going to equalise now and Baptista got the credit yet again in the 77th minute after being set up by Theo Walcott. The chants of the Arsenal fans said it all. Spurs' late attacks coming to nothing while Jol probably had only one word on his mind - 'oops'!

Whatever happens in the second leg at the Emirates Stadium it's going to be the first ever all-London League Cup final, making it ironic that Wembley was never going to be ready for it. It's surely Arsenal though that are going to face Chelsea in the Millenium stadium though, the first leg was an opportunity blown for Spurs. Chelsea vs Arsenal though is quite frankly too close too call right now, particularly if both sides play their first teams.

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