Clive Rose
Swansea head home with a lead in the League Cup, thanks to Michu and a great defensive performance at Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea put out a nearly full-strength team on Wednesday against Swansea City, but a great defensive performance by the visitors and two horrible errors by the Blues' back line has the Swans headed home with a 2-0 lead in their League Cup semifinal.
Branislav Ivanovic, who was responsible for both goals, gifted the opener to Michu with a horrible giveaway. To that point, Swansea had not looked like the best version of themselves, and Chelsea goal seemed inevitable. While the Swans defended well in the first half -- and well into the match -- they did very little going forward and struggled to keep the ball. The goal came when Ivanovic was pushed off the ball comfortably by Julian de Guzman, who found Michu for a beautiful curled finish from 18 yards.
Chelsea generated chance after chance in the second half, but failed to sneak anything past Gerhard Tremmel, who had an excellent game in goal in place of Michel Vorm. Ashley Williams and Chico Flores were also excellent in front of him, regularly blocking shots and cutting out through balls before they had the opportunity to turn into shots.
Frank Lampard and Demba Ba entered the game as substitutes, but weren't able to find a goal for their team. Ba was very lively and generated a couple of half chances, but couldn't find the net. He also picked up a yellow card for diving, which was unfair on him after he made incidental content with Tremmel, and had a goal disallowed for offside. He did much more with his short time on the pitch than Fernando Torres did with his 82 minutes, but failed to find the net.
In stoppage time, Ivanovic struck with another crippling error to sink his team. In similar fashion to the first goal, he gave the ball away in his own third, with Danny Graham the beneficiary this time around. Chelsea now have an incredible amount of work to do at the Liberty Stadium, and the League Cup looks destined to feature an improbable Swansea City - Bradford City final.
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