By Alan Duffy
Chelsea 1-0 Liverpool (Agg: 2-1 ) – Capital One Cup Semi-Final 2nd Leg – 27th January 2015
Chelsea bounced back from Saturday’s shock home defeat to Bradford by securing their place in the Capital One Cup final after battling to victory against Liverpool.
The game was full of flash-points, with Blues’ hitman Diego Costa lucky not to see red for a couple of stamps. However, the Spanish international really should have had a penalty early on after he was blatantly tripped in the box by Martin Skrtel, only for referee Michael Oliver to ignore the protests. Indeed, throughout the game, Oliver looked out of his depth, struggling to keep control of the niggly clash.
Liverpool impressed throughout but failed to make the most of their chances while Chelsea found Simon Mignolet in superb form in the Reds’ goal.
However, eventually the goal did come in injury time. Branislav Ivanovic was the hero for the Blues, with the Serb heading in Willian’s free-kick to make the score 2-1 on aggregate. The visitors still had one more chance to send the game into extra-time, only for Jordan Henderson to miss a simple header from all of six yards out.
So Chelsea will now face either Tottenham or Sheffield United at Wembley while Brendan Rodgers, although no doubt disappointed to fall at the semi-final hurdle, will be buoyed by the overall gutsy performance of his charges.
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Photos: Getty Images
Highlights: Footytube