Middlesbrough punish wasteful Chelsea in Carabao Cup semi-final first-leg
Middlesbrough 1-0 Chelsea (Hackney 37′)
RIVERSIDE STADIUM – Chelsea continue to confound, finding new ways to lose football matches and deliver performances less than the sum of their parts.
It would be tempting to label this Carabao Cup semi-final defeat to a doughty Middlesbrough an upset but is it really? It is what Chelsea have become: a side with so much talent but so little ability to harness it.
They have a chance to right the wrong at Stamford Bridge in a fortnight but you wouldn’t bet on Mauricio Pochettino’s side. This young, spirited Boro side were very good value for a win that will go down in folklore if the Teessiders complete the job.
Chelsea were outfought and Pochettino was outthought by Michael Carrick, a bright managerial talent whose in-game changes bent the narrative of the game and have given Middlesbrough more than a fighting chance of making the final.
He started this game with five at the back – re-running the experiment he tried against Aston Villa – but responded to two early injuries with the smart decision to revert to a flat back four that Chelsea struggled to breach.
Pochettino’s changes, by contrast, made little change to a team that huffed and puffed but never really looked like opening up resolute Middlesbrough.
For all Carrick’s tactical acumen, it was his side’s battling qualities that saw them prevail here. They absorbed injury setbacks and Chelsea pressure to emerge with a precious lead to take to Stamford Bridge.
It was a riveting game, played out at a raucous Riverside that helped turn it into an old-fashioned cup tie.
Of course there was no video assistant referee (VAR) here, the absence of technology trumpeted before the game as a good thing. But it only took a few seconds for the home side to lament its absence when Axel Disasi cleaned out Emmanuel Latte Lath in the penalty area.
It was the VAR debate in a nutshell: the foul was clear, the error from referee Sam Barrott obvious. Middlesbrough should have had a penalty and a devastated Latte Lath lasted only a couple more minutes before succumbing to an injury picked up in the incident.
But did the decision fatally undermine the contest or come to define it? Not nearly as much as the tedious tendency to re-referee games from Stockley Park has on Premier League weekends.
The lesson here for the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL)? If a game has enough intrigue it can survive a bad call or two – and this contest certainly had enough appeal to that.
Carrick’s injury-plagued Boro might be struggling to cling on to the coattails of the Championship’s promotion pacesetters but they remain formidable on their day and they were backed by a brilliant, boisterous home crowd who arrived in anticipation of something special.
They have overachieved in cup competitions in their modern history, a sentiment that inspired the banner hoisted in the South Stand before kick-off that read “Bring It Home Again”. It was a reference to their 2004 League Cup win in Cardiff – the only major honour in the club’s history – and a reflection of the fact they could sense the vulnerability in Chelsea’s expensively assembled XI.
Levi Colwill summed up their struggles. He is a brilliantly talented centre-back but looked all at sea at left-back, pressed and pulversided on the counter-attack by the impressive Isaiah Jones.
And theirs is a five-star forward line, with the richly talented Cole Palmer and prolific Raheem Sterling supposed to bomb on. But Palmer’s first-half struggles in front of goal – missing three clear cut chances – were symptomatic of Chelsea’s continued issues. Prolifigacy and inconsistency continue to undermine any tenative progress Pochettino makes.
They could have few complaints when the home side took the lead. Jones ran with purpose and pace at a bedraggled Colwill before supplying a cross that Hayden Hackney cleverly turned past Djordje Petrovic. It was the cutest of finishes and took the roof off the Riverside, whose defiance matched the durability of their team.
Player of the match – Isaiah Jones
- Gave Levi Colwill a nightmare night and teed up Boro’s brilliant opener. Looks a rich talent.
Cue a response from Chelsea? Not quite. They continued to dominate possession and pick passes at will but they couldn’t convert.
Palmer failed to pounce when a nervy Alex Glover failed to hold on to Enzo Fernandez’s dipping shot. It came at him fast and awkwardly but a player of his ability would expect to score with the goal gaping. It was the story of another unimpressive night for the Blues.
