Chelsea have reached the FA Cup final after beating Tottenham 4-2 in a thrilling Wembley semi-final.
Two Willian goals rither side of a Harry Kane header sent Chelsea into half-time with a 2-1 lead, but Dele Alli levelled the scores soon after the break.
Antonio Conte's changes paid dividends as substitute Eden Hazard struck to put Chelsea 3-2 up, with Nemanja Matic's stunning long-range effort sealing a place in the final against either Arsenal or Manchester City.
Both sets of players wore black armbands to mark Ugo Ehiogu's death, with a minute's applause held ahead of the game after the Spurs Under-23 coach passed away on Friday morning.
Chelsea have therefore reached their first FA Cup final since 2012; Tottenham’s 26-year wait goes on. The scoreline reads like a rout, but the match was in the balance until Chelsea’s two spectacular late strikes.
A wonderful game which ebbed and flowed all evening. Spurs can be very proud of their contribution to a classic FA Cup semi, though that won’t keep them warm tonight. Ah well, time to concentrate on the league. As for Chelsea, they were simply magnificent, Antonio Conte’s selection and subsequent substitutions playing out perfectly. A league and cup double is a very real possibility now.
Tottenham have still not been in an FA Cup final since Paul Gascoigne was running around injuring himself against Nottingham Forest in 1991, and they have now failed at the semi-final stage on eight consecutive occasions.
Chelsea last won the Cup in 2012, and Conte now has a chance to mark his first season in England by winning the Double. It would be foolish to write him off, for though his selection policy might have been deemed risky, it ended up underlining the strength at his disposal.
Relive the action
Once the game got underway the Chelsea changes had an almost instantaneous positive effect. Michy Batshuayi might still be waiting for his first league start this season but the first time he received the ball in an attacking position a clever flick and feint was all he needed to send Pedro racing towards goal. Toby Alderweireld just about managed to get across in time to cover but only succeeded in bringing the Spaniard down with a scything tackle on the edge of the area. The Spurs defender went into the book with barely four minutes on the clock and to make matters even worse Willian scored directly from the free-kick, bending a shot around the wall to catch out Hugo Lloris.
With Chelsea continuing to dominate, Batshuayi brought a save by Lloris from a N’Golo Kanté cross, finding himself free in front of goal but unable to quite summon enough power on the header to trouble the goalkeeper. The header from Harry Kane that brought Spurs back level in the 18th minute was hardly the most forceful Wembley has ever seen either, though whether by accident or design he managed to put the ball in exactly the right place when he stooped low to meet Christian Eriksen’s cross with an improvised finish.
David Luiz needed treatment after Dele Alli trod on his ankle while looking in the opposite direction, the Spurs player receiving the benefit of the doubt and going unpunished by referee Martin Atkinson. Spurs seemed to have recovered from their early nerves by the half-hour mark, and Eric Dier was close to putting then ahead from a Jan Vertonghen cross as the Chelsea chances began to dry up. A well timed challenge from David Luiz was needed to prevent Alli running clear from Kane’s nudge forward, then an Eriksen shot was comfortably held by Thibaut Courtois when it appeared the goalkeeper might be caught off his line.
Just when Conte must have been weighing up the pros and cons of putting his strongest team out for the second half, Chelsea unexpectedly regained the lead. There seemed little danger when Kanté fanned the ball out for Victor Moses to cross from the right, but as he entered the penalty area the wing-back took an extra touch that left Son Heung-min exposed and already committed to a sliding tackle. Son protested his innocence, but it was a poor challenge to make in the area, and once Moses had fallen over an outstretched leg, Willian scored his second of the afternoon from the penalty spot.
Spurs were thus obliged to climb back into the game again, and it took them only seven minutes of the second half to manage it. The influential Eriksen hoisted a diagonal ball forward that David Luiz thought he had covered until Alli nipped in ahead of him to beat Courtois with a masterly first-time finish, taking only one touch but sending a left-foot half volley high into the net. The game was a full-blooded contest now, and when Willian saw a shot blocked at one end, Alli charged into the box at the other to win a corner.
When Costa and Hazard made their entrances after just over an hour in what appeared a pre-planned strategy, nothing happened for the best part of a quarter of an hour. Chelsea continued to look sluggish and reluctant to take the game to Spurs, with only Moses willing to break out of his own half, though it was one of his runs that produced the corner from which their third goal arrived. Cesc FÃ bregas crossed but did not find David Luiz, Spurs failed to clear and the ball ran through to Hazard on the edge of the area, who drilled a low shot into Lloris’s bottom corner.
As if making up for lost time Hazard was also involved in the show-stopping finish five minutes later, carrying the ball across the area and meeting little resistance before rolling a pass back for Nemanja Matic to score with a thumping drive. One could only feel sorry for Spurs by then, they hardly deserved to be in the end of a 4-2 mauling, yet these days Chelsea not only seem to be writing their own rules but coming up with some completely new scripts.
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