Five Key Takeaways as Arsenal beat Chelsea to reach League Cup final 

Here's Charlie Ashmore after a night to remember as Arsenal reached the 2026 Carabao Cup final 

1 - This is what control gives you….

Was it an exciting game full of exciting moments and attacking play? No. Was it tense?  Hell yes but not for the first time, the benefit of hindsight tells you we were never really at risk.  Did the team deliver? Hell, yes again with knobs on. 

This was a game Chelsea had to win. We restricted them to essentially nothing – a couple of long range shots was about it.  Apparently they had not a single shot from inside the box after the seventh minute of the match. 

Think about that for a minute. They came into the game on the back of a good run, unbeaten since the first leg (in fact I think they had won every game since then). 

They have world class players coming out of their ears.  They needed to win. 

Not a single shot inside the box for 93% of the match.  Extraordinary. 

This is what we have been working towards. 

The ability to just shut out teams with maximum efficiency.   We are an absolute b***** to play against because even in games like this we just give nothing away.   

Think back to our three defeats this season. 

Liverpool – a wonder goal after a mistake by Zubimendi gives a free kick away. 

Villa – Eze switches off to let Cash score unchallenged at the far post.   

United – gifted the goal that gave them a foothold in the game by a terrible pass. 

In essence teams need us to make a mistake to give them a chance.  It may not always be pretty but it's damned effective.

2  - what a strange media narrative but it's probably a compliment.

Reading the press and commentary after the game and listening to the radio the narrative is really weird. 

Leaving aside the BBC trying to claim credit for Chelsea leaving players up at corners (which ignores the fact that Chelsea did it in the first leg also on at least one occasion), the media seems to be describing it as Chelsea contained Arsenal and stopped them playing their game and so on.

Really? 

It looked to me as if we played our game perfectly – see point one above. 

The point is Chelsea had to win the game. 

They never looked like doing it. 

That's the story. 

I take it as a compliment because the rationale behind the media narrative is we are the best team and teams have to stop us playing.  It's nonsense but it comes from a place of reluctant acknowledgment that we are the team to beat currently.

3 - 60 million down the drain….

What a fantastic moment that was.  It's right up there with the stadium's finest moments. 

The noise when Kai Havertz scored was deafening. 

It was a brilliant opportunity for him to ram the boos from fans for whom he won a Champions League right back down their sorry throats. 

The speed with which he emptied their end especially the upper tier was astonishing. 

If the Chelsea players had moved with the pace of their fans leaving they would have been infinitely more dangerous. 

He took the chance with aplomb and boy did he enjoy it, and rightly so.  He is back at just the right time for our season and as long as we can keep him fit he is going t be very important in the last three months.

4 - A word for Piero Hincapie

There has been a lot of focus and rightly so on Jurrien  Timber, Gabriel and William Saliba whose weekly excellence is now a given. 

But quietly and unassumingly, Piero Hincapie has been exceptional. 

He is an old school defender in the sense that he has that proper defender's mentality – my job is to keep you out. 

Throw in the South American niggle – if I have to hurt you to keep you out, so much the better.  But he also has more to his came than an old school defender – he can play.   

I am still not sure he is fully trusted on the overlap but he showed last night he is not afraid to have a go and had big Gabi managed to react quicker he may have had a tap in on the rebound from Hinacpie's shot in the first half. 

Fast becoming a cult hero our first Ecuadorian is growing on me week after week.

5 - VAR…what is it good for?

Yes, I know I am sounding like a broken record but I am not going to apologise for it.  VAR is ruining the game and is doing it without even having the merit of achieving what it is there for. 

That challenge on Gabi Martinelli late in the game was a foul.  Unquestionable. 

I get why the referee may not have spotted it – Chalobah got the ball initially but he unmistakably lifted his other leg in the follow through deliberately to trip Gabriel Martinelli and stop him getting to the loose ball. 

Apparently VAR said it was a natural contact in the follow through but that is utter drivel. 

How can you watch the deliberate movement of his leg and not see it for what it was? 

If VAR is not for that situation, it is for nothing. 

Get rid. Get rid now. It would not be missed.