Carling Cup Final, Arsenal vs. Chelsea Highlights – Young Gunners lose
It was Chelsea’s first team versus Arsenal’s second in the Carling Cup Final. No Henry, Lehmann, Gallas, Eboue, Adebayor, Gilberto, Rosicky or Hleb in the starting lineup for the Gunners, Arsene Wenger staying true to his word about playing his youngsters giving them what they deserve – a Cup Final. But when it was all said and done the ghost of Didier Drogba wasn’t done haunting Senderos. Drogba supplied a great header to a Robben pass and Senderos was way too late to contest Drogba. 2-1 Chelsea the final.
With a little more experience, slightly better defending and Henry instead of Baptista in there, this would’ve been Arsenal’s game. But take nothing away from Arsenal, their youngsters showed no signs of big match nerves and if anything it was the veterans that let the team down.
Equal possession early on but Arsenal playing much more confidently and creating chances for Fabregas and Baptista after carefully dissecting the Chelsea defense. Baptista unleashing a strong effort between John Terry’s legs which Czech managed to get a finger tip on. On the ensuing corner, Chelsea fans starting throwing stuff on the pitch as Fabregas is about to take the corner. Drogba can’t clear the corner and Fabregas gets the ball right before some nifty passing by Arsenal finds Walcott all alone with just Czech to beat from seven yards. The youngster makes no mistake. His first for Arsenal comes at a crucial time. The commentators were pure Chelsea supporters, they kept making excuses for John Terry everytime they had a chance.
Theo Walcott 1-0
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yXOcnRt5xs]
After twenty minute Chelsea had yet to manage anything of consequence with Lampard’s effort being blocked nicely by Senderos. At this point the commentator mentions that Arsene Wenger has yet to beat Jose Mourinho which makes me very angry for some reason. Arsenal are on a 3 on 2 break when Baptista waits way too long before deciding on doing anything and ends up giving the ball away. On the counter-attack, the off-side flag incorrectly stayed down and Drogba was alone on the right with just Almunia to beat and he did so by going through his legs. Just before Chelsea scored, Arsenal had a chance to go ahead 2-0 but instead it’s 1-1. Traore having some serious trouble in the left-back position with Toure having to help out too often allowing Chelsea to create chances and Drogba and Shevchenko focusing their attacks entirely on Traore.
Didier Drogba 1-1
[dailymotion id=5f1VJgcEJ9JIH9bnZ]
A nice run by Diaby on the left really showcased his skill but after an exchange of passes, his shot had no string from 10 yards out and humbly rolled to Czech. Arsenal, after regressing for about 10 minutes showed creativity and desire to go forward. But nothing on either side of any weight until Baptista is too late to connect with the header from the right and Czech collects. Later on Aliadiere breaks down John Terry and all he’s got to do is beat Carvalho but the Portugese gets a good foot on it. Arsenal with a great chance to take the lead. The commentators really love John Terry, they blame his injury instead of giving Aliadiere credit.
Second half starts out with a flurry with Arjen Robben reading the Shevchenko run but the pass is an inch too far. Abu Diaby finds open space on the left and the pass to him is perfect but his shot across goal is saved by Czech who covers the goal well. A better effort by Diaby might have beaten Czech. Diaby was running rampant in the second half, forcing free kicks and causing problems for Chelsea. This guy just made a case to be playing in the Champions League.
The contact on the John Terry injury was purely accidental – he wanted to score and Diaby wanted to prevent it from happening, nothing malicious on the part of Diaby whatsoever. Terry is substituted and Essien drops back to defense. On the other side, it appears Walcott can get past Wayne Bridge anytime he wants and Arsenal probably should have looked more to exploit that advantage but Chelsea go off the hook there. At 66 minutes, Traore replaces Eboue, the youngster was having his share of troubles on the field today, especially early on. Alexander Hleb replaced Diaby which was a little suprising, Diaby was playing well and covering the length of the field with his runs.
John Terry Knocked Out
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TERXgr5lZ00]
Adebayor came in for Aliadiere who had a decent game and anytime there was service for him, he made something good of it. The Arsenal youngsters had a good overall showing, it was just moments of lapsed concentration that cost them this one.
Late in the second half is when Drogba struck for his second, a goal that would have been easily preventable had Senderos done his homework and paid even a little attention to what Drogba wanted to do. Arsenal didn’t have a single decent corner in the game with Czech collecting most of them easily. Exact same could be said for freekicks with Fabregas and Baptista’s efforts always hitting the wall, we really missed Henry here.
Didier Drogba 2-1 (These Korean commentators are awesome)
[dailymotion id=6mkEz95aEpCls9bGF]
In the end, it was mayhem, red cards were everywhere. An injury time brawl ended up with Howard Webb dismissing Jon Obi, Kolo Toure and Emmanuel Adebayor. Adebayor continued to jaw at Webb and had to be hauled off the pitch. He’ll definitely be facing an FA charge. Here’s a few pictures that tell the story:
After the final whistle, I just switched it off.
adebayor’s outburst will surely earn him a couple of matches ban
I just can’t understand why Wenger doesn’t field a proper side in these games. Either we want to win the Cup or we don’t. Which one is it? If we want to win it, we should do our best which we obviously didn’t do.
Chelsea’s celeberating like they won the title. WTF, don’t they know they played against a bunch of kids. Denilson, Diaby, Traore and Walcott. C’mon.
Obviously, wenger didn’t put as much emphasis on a win in this game as most of us would have liked. But I did think our boys did a good job for being so young and for playing Chelsea’s first team. It figures that Chelsea would celebrate like that. They know its a rare occasion when they get a win over arsenal.
I see NorwayGunner’s point of view. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be upset that we lost knowing that we didn’t put our best squad out there. I guess it serves as some weird consolation that we probably would’ve won had we actually tried to win.
It all comes down to this: Carling Cup is not a high priority at all for Wenger.
I really think that Arsenal lost nothing to this, seeing that Chelsea fielded their international superstars, while Arsenal used youngsters. of course it’s a little sad that they lost, but think of it this way: Arsenal went on to the CC final using kids, while everyone was using their first team. It’s quite magnificent actually that something like that would happen.
If Arsenal did field their first team, i doubt Chelsea would be celebrating at all. And of course, Mourinho will be in the papers the next day, talking about how Arsenal cheated them.
Just goes to show you that the future of Arsenal is looking bright.
well dun chelsea!!!!! they r amazin
Why are you on an Arsenal blog? Don’t you have your own cess pool to comment on? You obviously have no idea about soccer because if you did, you wouldn’t be proud to be a Chelsea fan, even though they won. You would be ashamed that your mates played so badly and almost lost against our youngsters. Ha, Chelsea. Yeah, you be proud of them. (high sarcasm intended)
Chelski fans have no reason to gloat, I can’t wait to see them get their ass kicked in the league game on May 5th
Liverpool for europe!
yow all u fools that sayin arsenal din put their best foot forward and all that trash, why din u look at the youths that are player for chelsea too… so before u all start bitching about youth team this youth team that… obviously these babies dont even deserve their places on the team, fightin at the highest level of the game? what a bunch of soar losers! fire bun all dem friggin arsenal fans!
i like how you just completely ignored all the rules of grammar and spelling with your post. Anyway, Mourinho even admitted himself that one day he would like to have a youth team much like Wenger’s. If he did have a decent second team, he wouldn’t even have used all his first-team players in the CC final.
so please, stop before you embarass yourself. Oh and by the way, it was an Arsenal youngster by the name of Emmanuel Adebayor who scored against Manchester United, a pass from Fabregas, also a youngster. It was Van Persie who equalised against the second game against your sorry asses, who is also a youngster.
so before you talk trash about Arsenal youngsters, i suggest you look at the games first. ok?
Sex Fabregas, I think you’ll find, unfortuntely a few spelling and grammar mistakes in your last post also. And, to be honest, who really cares about the spelling and grammar anyway? (Even though it does make you look like a big man) This is a football forum, not a formal letter to the directors of chelsea explaining why arsenal lost. Arsenal have a very impressive youth team but, when it comes down to it, they did still lose. Perhaps Wenger has fielded a weak team so he, and his fans, have a nice excuse. “Yeah well, if we had our first team out we would have won, so there!” Surely there can be no other reason than this to sent out the youngsters? Perhaps the CC wasn’t aresenal’s top priority, but, a win is a win and it would bring some extra revenue to the club. Why not play youngsters against weaker teams, with less pressure on the players.
Oh, and by the way, it was an Arsenal youngster by the name of Emmanuel Adebayor who started a fight at the end of the game, with a helping hand from Fabregas, also a youngster. Perhaps the immaturity of youth had a part to play in that…
fgggdrdereARSENALROCKSskeldmd
Excuse me bt all u people sayin tht chelsea didnt deserve to win r wrong. If it wasnt for abou diaby knockin out John Terry then maybe u would of won or8?
Terry is fitter than any arsenal player so shove tht in ur pipe and smoke it m8!
is tht or8 wiv u m8?
Even tho i am an arsenal fan i still fink John Terry is fit n i felt sorry 4 him coz e nearly died so there4 i fink chelsea deserved 2 win it 4 him! n u chelsea supporters shud giv us sum credit coz if it werent 4 our medical team ur captain JT wud av died n tht wud of also left my m8 heartbroken. so really u shud be thankful 2 us!
Fabregas is the fittest player eva!!!!!
Cant wait for chelsea to make fools of themselves this season!!
SH*T club with no history, your 2 years of fame are over
I agree with CapeTownGunner. As a manutd fan, i agree that arsenal outplayed us in both matches. Back to the point, Chelsea are trash. We beat them to the premiership crown and we beat them in the Charity Shield. Even though they beat us in the FA Cup, it was pure luck. Oh yea, chelsea won, let it go, if it wasnt for the bitch Obi Mikel, the fight wudnt hav started. SO UP UR ASS CHELSEA AND MOURINHOS PUSSIES!!!!
You do have to admit, that without us John Terry could have died, and you should also remember that if he wasn’t so reckless the incident wouldn’t have occured in the first place! I don’t want to take away from chelsea’s win (since they don’t do that a lot), but you have all got to admit that they got lucky, and that it was in fact their player who started the fight; you should also recognise that arsene wenger only played youngsters in this cup, and our first team for other games! Why would he suddenly let the first team play in the final, when it was in fact the youngsters who got there in the first place?! You’ll find that younger players are generally fitter and faster than older players anyway, and in many situations this can be more important than experience: so we younger players would appreciate it if you old fogies could stop slagging off our generation!!! P.S If you want to see some REAL football, you should try watching the Arsenal Ladies at Boreham wood.
Yeah, Arsenal Ladies are an awsome team!!! It is sooo true that they could teach many mens teams a thing or two! For some REAL football try watching them at Boreham wood; check out their fixtures at the Arsenal website or the FA website!!!
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I luv chelsea their are my favourite team
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