For the first time in their history, Swansea City will be in a major tournament final after beating Chelsea 2-0 on aggregate in the Capital One Cup semi-finals. They will meet Bradford who become the first fourth tier side to reach a major final since Rochdale in 1962 after beating Aston Villa 4-3 on aggregate.
With Swansea bringing a 2-0 advantage back with them to the Liberty Stadium, they knew they didn't have to chase the second leg against Chelsea. But Chelsea seemed uninterested for large parts of the game as the match finished goalless and will be remembered for a very stupid and disgusting red card for Eden Hazard.
Unsurprisingly, Chelsea had more possession in the early going and thought they should have had a penalty on seven minutes when Demba Ba went down. But replays clearly showed Ba kicked his trailing leg against Ben Davies and the penalty was rightly not given. The resulting corner ended up giving Swansea their opening chance of the match and Wayne Routledge would have surely scored if it wasn't for Cesar Azpilicueta deflecting the volley just over the bar.
Out of the two keepers, Petr Cech was far the busier as Gerhard Tremmel was largely untested. After his howlers in the first leg, Branislav Ivanovic looked equally as nervous in this and looked a liability at times. Chelsea's best chance came on 21-minutes when a deflected Ashley Cole cross was headed off the line by Angel Rangel.
The only incident of the entire match came ten minutes from time and it was somewhat bizarre. Like many home ball boys, the Swansea lads were deliberately wasting time and this was clearly frustrating the Chelsea players. But Eden Hazard took it too far when a ball boy held onto the ball after it had gone out for a goal kick. The ball boy was challenged by Hazard and the ball boy ended up on the floor with the ball beneath his body. He still wouldn't give it up and Hazard unforgivably kicked him in the ribs in a stupid attempt to get the ball. After a few minutes to assess the situation and make sure the ball boy was fine, referee Chris Foy, who undoubtedly would have added the time on for the ball boy's time wasting, had no option but to send the despicable Frenchman and it this incident which will grab the headlines, not Swansea's majestic performance over the two legs.
They will now meet Bradford who booked their place in the final on Tuesday despite a 2-1 defeat at Villa Park. Unlike the first leg, Villa came out all guns blazing and were once again cursing Matt Duke for not being ahead. But Duke's resistance was finally broken on 24-minutes when Christian Benteke poked a lofted Joe Bennett ball home.
It was a dominant first half by the Villa and they may be should have been level on aggregate at half-time. The second half though saw a return of the Valley Parade Villa side which lacked a killer final ball or any creativity to beat Duke again. Zavon Hines was also shadowed by Bennett in the first half, but he began to bully the full back once again in the second.
It was Hines pestering Bennett that forced a corner ten minutes into the second half when Bennett should have just cleared the ball. Once again, Villa's Achilles heel haunted them as Peter Hanson outsmarted Ron Vlaar to head the ball home, equalising on the night and making it 4-2 on aggregate. The big striker would almost make it 5-2 from another set piece, but this time his header came crashing off the crossbar.
Villa's search for two goals saw them have four strikers on the pitch. This caused them to be far too narrow and the width that Charles N'Zogbia and Joe Bennett had largely provided in the first half was nowhere to be seen. But Villa did manage to pull one back through Andreas Weimann in the final minute of normal time. This set up a nervy injury time period but Bradford were able to keep the ball in the Villa half for the majority of it and the League Two side held on to the famous victory.
Besides the Capital One Cup action, Arsenal and West Ham met in their rearranged Boxing Day clash. Jack Collison gave West Ham the lead at the Emirates after 18-minutes before Lukas Podolski cancelled it out four minutes later. The teams departed at half-time with the score at 1-1, by the hour mark though Arsenal would be leading 5-1.
It took just two minutes in the second half for Olivier Giroud to give Arsenal the lead. Santi Cazorla made it 3-1 on 52-minutes before Theo Walcott made it four a minute later. Giroud would then complete a crazy start to the half with Arsenal's fifth and his second on 57-minutes. The crushing victory was somewhat marred though by a sickening injury to 18-year old Dan Potts seven minutes from time. A collision left Potts unconscious and requiring medical attention. It was ten minutes before Potts finally left the pitch on a stretcher and aided by an oxygen mask. Thankfully, Potts regained consciousness in hospital and has been kept in overnight to make sure that he is okay and hasn't suffered any serious ill-effects.
The win for Arsenal sees them close the gap on Everton to just a point and they now sit four points behind Tottenham in fourth. West Ham remain in 12th and eight points clear of the relegation zone and staggeringly only ten points behind Arsenal.
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