Arsenal and Chelsea met on Tuesday evening to decide when the team would be at Wembley on Sunday, March 22, 2026.
At least I think they met last night, as I’m not entirely sure the match has started yet.
Did you see that last night?
I sat down to watch the second leg of the Arsenal vs Chelsea Carabao Cup semi-final and it was an absolutely shocking experience. I’m not just talking about the sad Lee Dixon doing co-commentary on ITV, along with that complete clown (Sam Matterface?) he worked with. Is there a worse double act anywhere when it comes to live match commentary?
ITV has so little live football these days and yet when they do have matches, of all the people they could get, this duo they think is the best for the job?
The actual match between Arsenal and Chelsea summed up so much of what is wrong with modern football.
Chelsea have spent more money on players than any other club in England, in fact, more money than any other club in football.
Meanwhile, Arsenal are currently the best team in England and are clearly at the top of the Premier League, while also being the best team in Europe. It won all eight matches and finished top of the Champions League table.
Yet their plan from the first minute was that, as a goal from the first leg, Arsenal would try to keep a clean sheet, meaning they wouldn’t try to attack for the entire match.
Whereas Chelsea, despite having to score or else be out, they, well, I don’t know what they were doing. Just that endless ballplay in non-dangerous areas, which apparently is now proof that we are a top quality team.
Until the final seconds of the match, the shots on target in 96 minutes of play were one for Arsenal and two for Chelsea. I couldn’t even remember that one!
Kai Havertz and Arsenal actually scored a goal. Chelsea finally threw caution to the wind in the final few minutes and were caught in the final seconds, as Arsenal went crazy and ran towards the opponent’s goal, a three-on-one situation that ended with Havertz scoring in the final seconds to make it 4–2 and Arsenal heading to Wembley.
The end justifies the means, it seems.
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 weakest touch where a player collapses time and time again and is awarded a free kick. Especially when 999 times out of 1000, one player shields the ball and feels the faintest touch from the player behind him and automatically goes down to get the free kick. Maybe one in a thousand times the free kick is not given. This seemed to happen every minute, with the match stopping again and again for these free kicks when there was almost no contact.
Another plague of the modern game. One of the few times Chelsea had any threat was a free-kick 25 yards out. As they prepared to shoot, the camera panned to nearby Chelsea fans. There was no lying, but I could swear the majority of them had their phones out to film the potential free-kick goal. What is that all about? I hope quite a few of them dropped and broke their phones in frustration when the free-kick predictably went nowhere.
The commentators and other ‘experts’ I have heard and read have said that this was an excellent performance from Arsenal which got them to Wembley. They had managed to win two corners and put one shot on target for that goal in the very last seconds. They are the best team in Europe and have plenty of quality players, yet they played to a 0-0 at home and refused to attack.
I couldn’t help but compare last night’s match to the one Arsenal played exactly a year ago, when we get to tomorrow.
Arsenal trailed 2–0 after the first leg and traveled to St James’ Park for the second leg on 5 February 2025.
All the ‘experts’ predicted that Eddie Howe would sit deep and limit any attack, trying at all costs to maintain that lead in the first leg.
I didn’t believe that for a second.
I had 100% confidence that Eddie Howe would send his players out from the start to join Arsenal and finish them. Newcastle went at them from the first whistle, had some good points before Murphy scored after 19 minutes, 3-0 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 match the same way Newcastle did a year ago, they might have conceded a goal against Chelsea, but I think they would have scored at least three themselves.
Arsenal (and all their media peers) will all say that the end justifies the means, but 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’s the point?
#Arsenal #Chelsea #kick