Key events
90 min +7: Chelsea do indeed launch long, but City come away with the ball on the break. De Bruyne has options in the middle but decides to take it to the corner instead. The professional’s professional.
90 min +6: Chilwell drives down the left and wins a free kick just inside the City half, Silva diving in needlessly. A chance to line up on the edge of the City box and launch long.
90 min +5: Kevin De Bruyne is named player of the match by the BBC’s Jermaine Jenas.
90 min +4: Chelsea can’t get hold of the ball. City the pass masters. The clock ticks on. Poor old Mauricio Pochettino, not for the first time at Wembley this season, looks a broken man.
90 min +3: Now it’s City’s turn to take their time over a restart. Chelsea hoist by their own petard.
90 min +2: De Bruyne tries to release Doku into the box down the left but uncharacteristically clanks out of play for a goal kick.
90 min +1: The first of eight additional minutes passes. The tension at Wembley is palpable.
90 min: Chilwell romps down the left. Sterling is clear in the middle! But the low cross comes a little too late, allowing Rodri to deflect the ball out for a corner. Nothing comes of the set piece, other than a careless De Bruyne lunge on Chilwell just outside the box. No contact, play on.
88 min: City replace Alvarez with Bobb, while Chelsea make a double roll of the dice, swapping Cucurella and Fernandez for Chilwell and Sterling, the latter coming on to pantomime boos.
86 min: That’s a real hammer blow for Chelsea, who have probably been the better side. They’ve certainly had the lion’s share of the chances. But Doku has been marvellous since coming on, and he’s been instrumental in helping City to unlock Chelsea’s defence. Meanwhile Fernandez and De Bruyne tangle, and both are booked. De Bruyne’s scissor-style tackle from behind wasn’t the best.
GOAL! Manchester City 1-0 Chelsea (Silva 84)
City break the deadlock! Doku, who has beefed up City’s attack since coming on, dribbles down the left and feeds De Bruyne on the inside. De Bruyne crosses low and hard into the six-yard box. Petrovic manages to deflect it away from goal, but only to Silva, who takes a nanosecond to work out the dimensions before slotting into the bottom right!
83 min: Petrovic takes his sweet time over the restart, and Foden gets into the referee’s ear. Foden goes into the book. He’s not happy. But that’s a fleeting problem, because …
82 min: City probe this way and that, and briefly threaten to open Chelsea up. Doku’s brilliance from the left sets up Rodri, but the midfielder declines the opportunity to shoot from the edge of the D, instead switching the play to the right. Silva tees up Alvarez, who slices wildly over the bar. What a waste.
80 min: Chelsea make a double change, swapping out Gusto and Madueke for Disasi and Mudryk.
79 min: Gallagher’s corner is cleared by Dias. The ball’s returned into the mixer and Palmer sticks out a telescopic leg, but can only divert it wide, and turns out he was offside anyway.
78 min: It shouldn’t be a corner, by the way. The ball came off Akanji, then off the back of Gusto’s trailing leg. But here we are. Ortega is good to continue.
77 min: Gusto is clearly fine now because here he is barrelling down the right flank to win a corner. Before it can be taken, Ortega goes down. On comes the trainer.
75 min: Doku drops a shoulder to get past Gusto on the left. He’s upended for his trouble, but the referee waves play on. You wouldn’t say this has been Michael Oliver’s best game.
74 min: Gusto comes back. Madueke has a speculative shot from 25 yards blocked. Really not sure how this is still goalless. It’s been an entertaining game.
73 min: Gusto gets up. He’s good to continue, and waits by the side of the pitch as the corner’s taken, and Silva gets fouled. Pressure off.
72 min: Doku has been electric since coming on. He makes his way down the left past Gusto and wins a City corner. Before it can be taken, Gusto requires some treatment. “The Grealish handball sums up all that is wrong with VAR,” argues Rick Harris. “Absolutely clearly hits Grealish on the arm which is away from his body and moves towards the ball. The ref should have been told to go look at the pitch-side screen but his mate in the VAR booth doesn’t want to embarrass him so they pretend it didn’t touch the City player. Shambles.”
70 min: Doku advances down the left and cuts back for Alvarez, who cushions a ball into the path of De Bruyne. The City playmaker opens his body and whistles a first-time shot across Petrovic and wide right. City beginning to find themselves.
69 min: Doku nearly punishes them immediately with a powerful dribble down the inside-left channel. His low drive is kicked clear by Petrovic.
68 min: Another huge chance for Chelsea goes begging. Palmer pings Caicedo free down the right with a glorious turn and flick. Caicedo looks for Jackson in the middle, but gets the ball stuck in between his feet and eventually overhits a scooped cross. This is beginning to get old. If Chelsea don’t win this semi-final, they’ll have regrets.
67 min: Grealish eventually takes his place in the dugout, having said his piece at some length and with great passion. “Quite agree with Jonny Bull (51 min),” writes Pablo Zadunaisky. “What should this process be called? Late Wegnerization? Or should we say the teams become… ozilized?”
65 min: Grealish, displeased rather than injured, wanders off, to be replaced by Doku. He immediately gets in the assistant referee’s ear over that Caicedo challenge. He is fuming.
63 min: Caicedo crashes into Grealish and catches his knee. He certainly doesn’t get out of the way with his follow-through. Already on a booking, he’s taking a serious risk. Grealish stays down. He’s in pain and not happy. He doesn’t accept Caicedo’s apology.
61 min: Chelsea break upfield from the corner. It’s Jackson versus Walker in a high-paced race down the inside-right channel! Jackson looks likely to get ahead of his opponent, but is unbalanced by a very meaty shoulder charge, before falling in the box. Chelsea want a penalty, but they’re not getting one. It looked a hard but fair challenge, though it was right on the edge of legality. Walker certainly took a chance, because anything mistimed would have been super-costly. The Grealish incident looked more like a spot kick, to be fair.
60 min: Grealish gets involved up the other end this time, as he snaffles a loose ball and advances towards the Chelsea box. He shoots. Deflected by Chalobah’s block. Corner coming up … but nothing comes of it.
58 min: Alvarez is yellow-carded for not retreating at a garden-variety free kick. What a pointless booking.
56 min: Grealish’s arm was by his side … but well away from his body. Opinions will vary, but you can file that under Seen Them Given. Also under Nobody Knows Anything. VAR says no … but Chelsea don’t even get the corner. Grealish has the good grace to look a little sheepish.
55 min: Palmer takes. A fierce shot deflects through the wall and wide right. That came off Grealish’s hand. VAR will take a look.
54 min: Madueke shimmies down the inside-right channel and is clumsily checked by Grealish. A free kick in a dangerous position, just to the right of the D.
53 min: City finally put Petrovic to serious work! Grealish glides down the inside-left channel and into the box. He rolls across for Foden, who slams a first-time shot towards the bottom left. The Chelsea keeper gets down well to parry with a strong hand. City keep the pressure on and win another corner; again the set piece is a waste of time. but that’s better from City!
51 min: City win a corner down the right. Foden takes, but it’s no good, and easily cleared. The champions have been strangely blunt so far. “Much as all species trend towards the crab, all possession based football teams slowly morph into late period Wenger Arsenal,” argues Jonny Bull in an email with the subject heading ‘Carcinization and Guardiola’.
49 min: Chelsea have come out flying. Cucurella nearly releases Jackson down the left with a cute pass, but Walker holds his position. Then Jackson is found in space down the middle by Gallagher. He opens his body and aims a low curler towards the bottom right. Ortega parries. Jackson has had two big chances now … and make that three, because the ball comes back into the box from the right by Palmer, and Jackson heads weakly at Ortega. He really should have scored.
47 min: Madueke lashes a wild effort high and wide from distance. “City look cooked,” suggests Rick Harris. “Chelsea really should be ahead and they might come to regret their lack of the killer instinct when big chances come their way.”
46 min: Walker’s studs make contact with Gallagher’s lower back as the pair contest a high ball. It looked slightly unnecessary … but to be fair, Gallagher is more than happy to accept Walker’s subsequent apology.
Chelsea get the second half underway. City have made one half-time swap, replacing Stones with Dias. A reminder that if this doesn’t get settled during the next 45 minutes plus stoppage time, we’ll get 30 minutes of extra time and possibly penalties.
Half-time long read, courtesy of David Wall. “The FA, among others, have been fretting for years about the cup losing its prestige and specialness, but they’re the most culpable for that because they’ve systematically diluted the challenge in what is, officially, ‘the FA Challenge Cup’.
“If they really want to restore it to former glories then they should roll back all of the changes made over the last 20 years or so. So rather than no replays, you have the possibility of endless replays, neutral venues for semi-finals (there are enough large capacity stadiums in London now that using Wembley is never necessary even if a semi-final involves two London clubs (the justification for Spurs – Arsenal at Wembley in 1991)) and a 3pm kick off for the final, which is the last game of the domestic season.
“I appreciate the point about reducing the number of matches for players, but that just means that managers will have to be clever with rotating their squads. And if that means playing a weakened side sometimes then so be it, it just means that they’re less likely to win. It’s supposed to be difficult, a challenge, to win. Pretty soon it’ll be just another run-of-the-mill competition and that will only make the bigger clubs more rather than less likely to lose interest.”
Preach on, brother.
HALF TIME: Manchester City 0-0 Chelsea
The keepers haven’t had too much to do, and yet both teams have looked lively in attack. It’s just not quite happened at the sharp end for either. A better game than the scoreline suggests.
45 min: Finally a yellow card, as Caicedo grabs a handful of the in-flight De Bruyne’s shirt. Chelsea’s all-action midfielder teetering on the tightrope now.
43 min: Foden goes marauding down the inside left and is hacked in the agricultural style by Caicedo, who really should be going into the referee’s notebook … but isn’t. A free kick just to the left of the D. Foden floats to the far stick, and out of play for a goal kick. It’s not really clicking for City so far.
42 min: Grealish sashays down the left before slipping a pass inside for Foden, who attempts an intricate one-two with De Bruyne on the edge of the Chelsea box. It doesn’t quite come off. Nearly.
40 min: Chelsea stroke it around the back in confident fashion. Suddenly a long ball’s whisked down the right for Madueke, who keeps it in play by the byline spectacularly. However the resulting cross is chested down calmly by Walker at the far stick and Ortega claims.
38 min: Palmer would have been within his rights to go down as he passed Rodri, by the way. There was a light clip and a hand around the waist. It’d have been soft, but he’d have certainly given the referee and VAR operative a decision to make, put it that way.
37 min: Jackson and Madueke are momentarily in a two-on-one situation, but their interchanges are clumsy and the decisions poor. The move breaks down. But Chelsea come again fast, Palmer dancing in from the right and gliding past Rodri. He opens his body and aims to pass one into the bottom left, but Ortega isn’t having that. City clear.
