Carabao Cup: Arsenal Beat Chelsea 1-0 – Havertz Sends Gunners to Final

The playlist that starts at the final whistle, the chilled Emirates audience sings it at the top of their lungs. “North London Forever”, the anthem strictly with the scarf in hand. And then “Waka Waka” by Shakira, with the retouched refrain that proclaims “Kai Havertz scores again”, Kai Havertz scored again. He is the hero of this sleepy semi-final return match with Chelsea, the one who officially launches the Quadruple mission. Arsenal will be at Wembley on Sunday 22 March, playing against Manchester City or Newcastle (at 9pm at the Etihad, starting from 2-0 City in the first leg) for the Carabao Cup, the first of the four trophies they can win this year. The first act of the Quadruple, in fact, that dream that many English teams have cherished and which so far no one has achieved. The Gunners got there because Havertz decided the second leg in the 97th minute, making it 1-0 which added to the 3-2 in the first leg. A fair reward: in the two-legged match, Arsenal definitely deserved to win their first League Cup final since 2018. In the return leg, despite Havertz’s final goal, Chelsea, however, definitely did more.

triumph

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Havertz’s final goal on the counterattack, launched by Declan Rice and good at discarding goalkeeper Sanchez before blowing up the Emirates, canceled out a flat game for Arteta’s team. Few ideas in attack, thanks to Chelsea’s great organization and some important absences (Bukayo Saka and Martin Ødegaard above all). And also the awareness of having started a goal ahead and, especially towards the end, of having to defend it to avoid trouble. What counts is not having conceded a goal, yet another clean sheet (this time it was Kepa in goal, not the very titled David Raya), having reached the final of a cup that Arsenal have not won since 1993. The Gunners need a trophy to definitively unlock the great level that they are one step away from being able to reach: with Arteta on the bench they only succeeded in 2020, winning the FA Cup, and even if the Carabao Cup is not the Premier or the Champions League, Arsenal hopes that triumph at Wembley will be the first step towards the opening of a cycle. We will need to improve compared to this second leg semi-final, because the Gunners once again seemed like the team that 10 days ago had been beaten by Manchester United and crushed by the pressure of having the Premier League in hand, rather than the one that swept away all doubts by overwhelming Leeds at home on Saturday and regaining control of the sprint for that English title that Arsenal have lacked since 2004. Eberechi Eze flopped against Chelsea, to whom Arteta gave a chance to demonstrate his being able to be the star of the team. And we didn’t even see Viktor Gyökeres, who touched only one ball in the entire first half.

strategy

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Chelsea remains disappointed. Arsenal are the only team they have failed to beat in their 8 games with Liam Rosenior at the helm and they came close this time. The coach had the great intuition to start with the 3-4-2-1: with the wingers Gusto and Cucurella who were more defenders than attackers and Moises Caicedo and Andrey Santos (probably the player who has grown the most under the new coach) protecting the defence, he closed off all the spaces and sent Arsenal into a tailspin. And then in the second half he tried to win it, with the creativity of Estevão and Cole Palmer, who were evidently still not at their best. It wasn’t enough, but this match is yet more proof of how much Chelsea can still win, of how the youngest team in the English top flight is full of talent to guide towards greatness. There’s still a little something missing, but Arsenal level, the best possible, isn’t that far away.