English football is a great equalizer. You are the best team one day and then the fortune reverses and everything goes bad for you. The EFL cup showed us just that Chelsea coming on back of a 4-0 win against Manchester United was expected to beat West Ham but were in fact ousted. Pep Guardiola one of the best managers of the present era has not won a match in six games now. Here is our reports from some selected matches from the League Cup round of 16.
Manchester United 1:0 Manchester City
The Red Devils finally had some redemption after having been beaten by City in the Premier League in September and going through a rough patch of form including a 4-0 defeat at Stamford Bridge on Sunday they had a purpose coming into the match and they delivered. The only goal of the match was scored by Juan Mata, a player many expected would be leaving the club after Jose was appointed as the manager but such has been the turn of events that he has been by far teams best player.
City too wanted to end their win less streak but Pep gave chances to a young team and they were good in the first half but the half time changed it and United dominated the game and got their goal and went to defending a typical Jose Mourinho’s bus parking performance. City introduced Aguero and Sterling in the match but they hardly threatened United’s goal, in fact it was City who could have suffered more had it not been for their keeper and the goal post.
The win will surely calm nerves of United fans and will help boost the morale of the team for City even tough they are still on top of the league a league cup elimination and six matches without a win will sure pose some tough questions for Pep.
Chelsea 1:2 West Ham United
A late 90th minute goal from Gary Cahill was not enough for Conte’s men as they crashed out from league Cup, after displaying a master class on Sunday. West Ham took the lead in the 11th minute through Cheikhou Kouyate and added another in the 48th minute through Edimilson Fernandes.
Chelsea played a much changed team from the one they played against United with Costa, Hazard and Pedro all on bench. After going 2 down Conte introduced all three but they could not change the course of the match with more than 30 minute of play. West Ham could have added even more in front of their home crowd in their new stadium had it not been for some good work by Begovic.
The result leaves Chelsea with only the Premier League to focus with and this could well be a blessing in disguise. For West Ham this win will give them confidence to turn up better display in the Premier League.
Tuesday Night Results
In other matches played on Tuesday Liverpool were victorious against Spurs , winning the tie 2-1 to reap more miseries over Spurs who have lost their winning ways. Arsenal beat Reading to move ahead and Southampton and Hull City are the other Premier League sides to make it the next round.
in total there are 6 teams from the Premier League and only 2 from Championship.
The Round of 8 will be played on November 28th.
EFL Cup Quarter Final draw
Liverpool v Leeds United
Manchester United v West Ham United
Hull City v Newcastle United
Arsenal v Southampton