Key events
29 min: … and Sterling comes close again as he takes a touch in a crowded box, nudges the ball to his right, the unleashes a shot from eight yards. He’s surely scored! But somehow Guimaraes blocks on the line and clears!
28 min: Sterling dribbles into the Newcastle box down the left. He opens his body and steers a shot across Dubravka … but inches wide of the right-hand post.
27 min: Gordon has the chance to release Wilson down the middle again, but Badiashile is the hero this time, stepping in to intercept at the vital moment.
25 min: Chelsea have enjoyed 82 percent of possession since Wilson’s opening goal.
23 min: Palmer, buoyed by his chewing-gum antics during the warm-up, sashays in from the right and fires a low shot towards the bottom right. Easy for Dubravka. Then Sterling makes good down the left and wins a corner. That comes to nothing as well, but this is better from Chelsea.
21 min: Silva is a class act. Like that’s breaking news. Wilson slides a pass out to the left for Livramento, who would be striding clear on goal down the channel were it not for Silva’s last-ditch, perfectly timed slide tackle. What an intervention!
20 min: Stamford Bridge is already a little bit on edge as a result of that goal. Quite a few groans from the home support as Chelsea fail to respond immediately. The away fans are giving it plenty, though.
18 min: It’s Callum Wilson’s 100th appearance for Newcastle tonight. What a way to celebrate it. He bustled down the middle with great power and grace, latching onto a misplaced pass, then hassling the defence into a mistake. At the end, an exquisite finish. It might have been a Chelsea fiasco, but it was textbook forward play from Newcastle’s number nine.
GOAL! Chelsea 0-1 Newcastle (Wilson 16)
Colwill fails to find Caicedo in the centre circle. Wilson tears off with the ball. He reaches the edge of the box but looks to have been crowded out by Badiashile, who steps in front of him, seemingly in control. But instead of dealing with the situation, Badiashile lets the ball clank off his shin. Wilson nicks it off him, and dinks across Petrovic and into the bottom left. What a fiasco from Chelsea’s perspective!
15 min: It’s played short, then Jackson fails to win a header at the near stick when it’s eventually delivered into the mixer.
14 min: Chelsea come back at Newcastle with some patient passing. Gallagher then releases Disasi into space down the right, and the full-back wins another Chelsea corner. Fernandez to take.
GOAL! Port Vale 0-2 Middlesbrough (Rogers 23). Boro are already in full control of their quarter-final at Vale Park. A ball from the inside-right channel is pulled back into the path of Morgan Rogers, who opens his body and steers a glorious, ice-cool shot into the bottom right from the edge of the box. The Port Vale keeper didn’t budge an inch.
10 min: Krafth curls in low from the right. Wilson can’t connect, having overrun the cross six yards out. The ball breaks back into a pocket of space, but Gordon doesn’t anticipate. Had he been on the front foot, he’d have surely been slamming home from 12 yards.
9 min: That near miss came against the run of play. Newcastle had looked the more coherent side during the early exchanges, their press causing Chelsea all sorts of palpitations as they played out from the back.
7 min: … the ball is played back to Gallagher, on the left-hand corner of the D. He takes a touch, opens his body, and curls a stunner towards the top right. Dubravka is beaten all ends up, but the ball pings off the crossbar and away. Chelsea inches away from taking an early lead! Somewhere in the multiverse, they’re one up and down to ten men.
6 min: Disasi creams a pass down the right flank for Jackson, who enters the box, performs a double stepover, then slams a shot from a tight angle into Botman. The ball’s deflected out for a corner, from which …
4 min: That was a really poor challenge by Caicedo, and Gordon is lucky he’s not been seriously hurt. That might have lit a fire, though, and not long after getting back up, he’s pearling a shot goalwards from the left-hand edge of the D. Disasi does well to close him down and deflect over for a corner, from which nothing comes.
2 min: Caicedo studs the back of Gordon’s standing leg. It’s a needless, careless challenge, and a potentially dangerous one to boot. Just a yellow, and Caicedo is lucky there’s no VAR tonight, because he’d surely have been walking upon a second look.
GOAL! Port Vale 0-1 Middlesbrough (Howson 11). An early setback for the League One club at Vale Park as Jonny Howson gives Boro the lead. A deflected shot from distance.
Chelsea get the ball rolling. They’re kicking towards the Shed End during this first half.
The teams are out at Stamford Bridge! A classic, old-school look: Chelsea in royal blue, Newcastle in black and white. The Hughie Gallacher derby. One there for the centenarians among you internet kids. We’ll be off in a minute or two.
The matches at Goodison Park and Vale Park have kicked off. No goals yet. More when we have it. Meanwhile in lieu of action, a fresh-breathed snippet from Stamford Bridge as Cole Palmer, warming up, hocks up a ball of chewing gum, lets it fall, flicks it up twice with his boot, and nearly catches it with his mouth. A competitive creature to his bones, he’s half wryly amused, half gutted when it pings off his chin and down to the floor.
Mauricio Pochettino talks to Sky. “It will be really important for us … we need to deserve it, to play well, to score goals and be really tough … we are facing a Champions League team so it will be so, so difficult … but after the momentum of the weekend it is positive … we cannot be consistent and that is what we want to be for the future … it is important for us to go through to the semi-final … it is going to be really competitive but I am very positive … we are ready to compete … we grow into many things, sometimes it is not easy to see from outside but from inside we are starting to see things that are very positive … we have impact players on the bench for the second half … today could be a good opportunity for [Christopher Nkunku] to feel the grass.”
Eddie Howe speaks to Sky Sports: “We’ve picked what we feel is a really strong team … we are limited by what we can do with the injuries we have got but still believe the squad is strong … we don’t think [Joelinton and Schar] have serious injuries … we hope they’re both back pretty soon but certainly aren’t ready for tonight … we’re determined today to try to do well again … we’ve grown really fond of this competition … we’ve had a tough run of fixtures and this will be another really tough game … [Botman] is a big player for us … very good on the ball … an absolute beast … we’re delighted to see him back … we’ve got to make a good start to this game … we’re here to progress.”
The 7.45pm teams
There are two other League Cup quarter-finals being played tonight. Marco Silva returns to Goodison Park with his Fulham side to take on in-form Everton … and it’s been a fair old while since we’ve been able to string those three words together. Everton have never won this competition, but with true Dychean determination, they’ve turned into one of the hottest teams in the land since being handed that ten-point deduction, so perhaps this is their time.
The other tie features the only two non-Premier League teams left in the pot. Port Vale of League One are playing in their first-ever League Cup quarter-final. They host Championship promotion hopefuls Middlesbrough, who lifted this trophy on 2003. Both games kick off at 7.45pm. I’ll try to keep you posted as much as I can, in an ersatz Clockwatch style. Here are the teams …
Everton: Pickford, Patterson, Branthwaite, Keane, Tarkowski, McNeil, Harrison, Gueye, Onana, Garner, Calvert-Lewin.
Subs: Danjuma, Virginia, Beto, Godfrey, Chermiti, Lonergan, Hunt, Dobbin, Metcalfe.
Fulham: Leno, Tete, Adarabioyo, Bassey, Robinson, Joao Palhinha, Reed, Wilson, Iwobi, Willian, Rodrigo Muniz.
Subs: Rodak, Cairney, Ballo-Toure, De Cordova-Reid, Andreas Pereira, Castagne, Lukic, Vinicius, Diop.
Port Vale: Ripley, Debrah, Lowe, Balmer, Massey, Ojo, Arblaster, Grant, Devine, Chislett, Garrity.
Subs: Sang, Smith, Loft, Ikpeazu, Leutwiler, Iacovitti, Walters, Dipepa, Lomax.
Middlesbrough: Glover, Dijksteel, Fry, Clarke, Engel, Howson, Barlaser, Rogers, Crooks, Silvera, Latte Lath.
Subs: Isaiah Jones, Gilbert, Coulson, Bangura, Jamie Jones, Nkrumah, Kavanagh, McCabe, Akono Bilongo.
Chelsea make just one change from the starting XI sent out to beat Sheffield United 2-0 at the weekend. Enzo Fernandez comes in for Mykhailo Mudryk.
Newcastle make three changes to their starting XI in the wake of their 3-0 Premier League victory over Fulham. Sven Botman and Lewis Miley come in for the injured pair of Fabian Schar and Joelinton. Emil Krafth meanwhile replaces Dan Burn, who drops to the bench.
The teams
Chelsea: Petrovic, Disasi, Thiago Silva, Badiashile, Colwill, Gallagher, Caicedo, Palmer, Fernandez, Sterling, Jackson.
Subs: Mudryk, Bettinelli, Nkunku, Broja, Gusto, Maatsen, Gilchrist, Bergstrom, Matos.
Newcastle United: Dubravka, Krafth, Lascelles, Botman, Livramento, Longstaff, Bruno Guimaraes, Miley, Almiron, Wilson, Gordon.
Subs: Trippier, Dummett, Ritchie, Karius, Hall, Gillespie, Burn, Alex Murphy.
Referee: Jarred Gillett (Australia).
Preamble
People don’t half love trash-talking the League Cup … until they get to the quarters, at which point the three-handled jug snaps into focus. Chelsea could do with a trophy to see them through a period of relative struggle; Newcastle are still dreaming of that first domestic pot since 1955. Neither will be turning up their noses at the chance of contesting a two-legged semi in the New Year. A 90-minute shootout – no extra time, straight to penalties if necessary – kicks off at 8pm GMT. It’s on!
