Chelsea reached the semifinal of the Carabao Cup with beating Bournemouth at Stamford Bridge with a margin of 1-0. Maurizioas made quite a few changes in the starting lineup of the Blues after the narrow win against Brighton and Hove Albion in the Premier League on Sunday. Kepa Arrizabalaga kept his place in the first team of Chelsea. It was his first appearance in this competition. In the previous two matches against Liverpool and Derby County, Willy Caballero started in the Goal of Chelsea. Cesar Azpilicueta and Antonio Rudiger also kept their place in the first team of the Blues. Andreas Christensen and Emerson Palmieri took the place of David Luiz and Marcos Alonso in starting lineup. N’Golo Kante and Jorginho got the much needed break in this match. Mateo Kovacic and Ross Barkley started as two attacking midfielders while Cesc Fabregas was playing the role of a deep lying midfielder. Willian and Ruben Loftus Cheek started at both the flanks for the Blues while Olivier Giroud was playing as a lone centre-forward upfront.
On the other hand, Callum Wilson returned for Bournemouth after recovering from the hamstring injury. Joshua King and Ryan Fraser were benched in this match. Mousset and Junior Stanislas were in the starting lineup of the Cherries. It was a nervy encounter throughout the whole 90 minutes and Chelsea came at the top with a deflected strike of Eden Hazard at the 84th minute of the match.
Chelsea were dominating with ball possession. However, they lacked a prolific goalscorer in the pitch and that was the reason why they were not able to break the deadlock in the match till the 84th minute. The Blues were the better side in the pitch in the first half of the match. Some problems in the Chelsea defense were caused by the Bournemouth attackers. Mousset was in great form. Callum Wilson also tried his best to impress his suitors in January.
The Blues’ manager Maurizio Sarri took Willian off at the 54th minute of the match and Pedro was included in the pitch. Ross Barkley was also subbed off to give Eden Hazard a chance to win the match for the Blues. On the other hand,Ryan Fraser and Joshua King were also brought in the side in place of Mousset and Stanislas in the second half of the match. Andreas Christensen limped off the pitch at the 81st minute of the match. David Luiz was included in the pitch in place of him. Today again David Luiz showed why he is so important in the system of Maurizio Sarri.
The inclusion of David Luiz in the pitch was instrumental for Chelsea to get the only goal of the match. It was a nice exchange between Eden Hazard, Pedro and Emerson Palmieri. Emerson Palmieri passed the ball to Eden Hazard. The deflected shot of the Belgian winger were able to get past the reach of Artur Boruc who played a great match. Eddie Howe brought in Defoe in place of Brooks to find an equaliser. However, they failed to find the equaliser and Chelsea progressed to the semifinal of the Carabao Cup.
