Arsenal and Chelsea met on Tuesday night, to decide when team would be at Wembley on Sunday 22 March 2026.
At least I think they met last night, as I’m not absolutely sure the match has kicked off yet.
Did you watch that last night?
I sat down to watch the Arsenal v Chelsea Carabao Cup semi-final second leg and it was an absolutely shocking experience. I am not just talking about the woeful Lee Dixon co-commentating on ITV, along with that complete clown (Sam Matterface?) who he was working with. Is there a worse double act anywhere, when it comes to commentary on live matches?
ITV have so little live football these days and yet when they do have matches, out of all of the people they could get, this duo is who they think are best for the job??
The actual Arsenal v Chelsea match summed up so much that is wrong with modern football.
Chelsea have spent more money on players than any other club in England, indeed, more money than any other club in world football.
Meanwhile, Arsenal are currently the best team in England and clear at the top of the Premier League, whilst also the best team in Europe, winning all eight matches they finished top of the Champions League table.
Yet their plan from the first minute was that being a goal up from the first leg, Arsenal would try to keep a clean sheet, which meant they wouldn’t try to attack, the entire match.
Whilst Chelsea, despite needing to score or else they were out, they, well, I don’t know what they were doing. Just that endless passing the ball about in non-dangerous areas that is apparently now the proof of being a top quality team.
Until the final seconds of the match, the shots on target in 96 minutes of play, was one for Arsenal and two for Chelsea. I couldn’t even remember those!
Kai Havertz and Arsenal did actually score a goal. Chelsea finally throwing caution to the wind in the last few minutes and in the dying seconds were caught out, as Arsenal lost their minds and ran towards the opposition goal, a three on one situation ending with Havertz scoring in the final seconds to make it 4-2 on aggregate and Arsenal on their way to Wembley.
The end justifies the means, apparently.
Two of the richest and most powerful clubs in world football, with the strongest teams and squads, serve up this shocker of a non-football match.
One of the other scourges of modern football, is the faintest touch seeing a player collapse and a free-kick given, time after time. Especially when 999 times out of 1000, one player is shielding the ball and feels the faintest touch from the player behind and automatically goes down to get the free-kick. Maybe once in a 1000 times the free-kick isn’t given. This seemed to be happening every minute, the game stopping time after time for these free-kicks when next to no contact.
Another scourge of the modern game. One of the few times Chelsea had any kind of threat, it was a free-kick aboyt 25 yards out. As they were preparing to take it, the camera went to the Chelsea fans close by, no word of a lie but I would swear the majority of them had their phones out trying to film the potential free-kick goal. What is that all about. I hope a fair few of them dropped and smashed their phones in frustration when predictably the free-kick came to nothing.
The commentators and other ‘experts’ I have heard and read, have said how this was some kind of excellent display by Arsenal, getting them to Wembley. They’d managed to win two corners and have one effort on target before that goal in the very final seconds. They are the best team in Europe and have countless quality players, yet they played for a 0-0 at home and refused to attack.
I couldn’t help but compare last night’s match to one that Arsenal played exactly a year ago, once we get to tomorrow.
Arsenal 2-0 down from the first leg, travelled to St James’ Park for the second leg on 5 February 2025.
All the ‘experts’ were predicting Eddie Howe would sit deep and limit any attacking, try to preserve that first leg lead at all costs.
I never believed that for a second.
I was 100% confident that Eddie Howe would send his players out to get at Arsenal from the start and finish them off. Newcastle went at them from the first whistle, had a number of close things before Murphy scored on 19 minutes, 3-0 up on aggregate and that was that. United never looked back and Gordon completed a 4-0 aggregate rout.
If Mikel Arteta and Arsenal had approached that game the same way Newcastle did a year ago, maybe they might have conceded a goal during the game to Chelsea but I reckon they would have scored at least three of their own.
Arsenal (and all their media mates) will all say the end justifies the means, but then what if they do the same in the final against Manchester City…or Newcastle United?
The hope of scoring goals should always be greater than the fear of conceding them, especially when you have all the money and all the power. Or else what is the point?