Nick Ames was at the Emirates to see Arsenal turn it up in the second half and make it through to the quarter-finals. His report has landed, and here it is. Congratulations at the Gunners, as well as Chelsea and Sunderland, and thanks for reading this MBM. Nighty night!
Sunderland beat QPR 3-1 on pens
Meanwhile across town at Loftus Road, Charlie Austin, Ilias Chair and Yoann Barbet miss from the spot for Rangers, Lyndon Dykes their only successful taker. Aiden McGeady, Ross Stewart and Alex Pritchard all found the net for the League One side, and the 1985 and 2014 runners-up are through to the last eight!
Chelsea beat Southampton 4-3 on pens
Reece James for the win? Yep! In it goes, passed into the bottom right. Chelsea are in the quarters! Chelsea 4-3 Saints.
Oriol Romeu, once of Chelsea, needs to score. He rolls down the middle, Kepa having vacated the space. Ice cool. Chelsea 3-3 Saints.
It’s goal machine Ben Chilwell! He whips his into the right-hand side of the net. Chelsea 3-2 Saints.
Will Smallbone had a couple of chances to score during the 90 ... and now skies his penalty miles over the bar. Oh dear. Chelsea 2-2 Saints.
Callum Hudson-Odoi stutters ... and sneaks his shot into the bottom left past Forster’s hand. Chelsea 2-2 Saints.
Shane Long next. He gives Kepa the eyes and sends him the wrong way, dragging his shot into the bottom left. Chelsea 1-2 Saints.
Mason Mount goes for the top left. He clips it well, but Forster sticks out a strong arm to save brilliantly! Chelsea 1-1 Saints.
Theo Walcott, formerly of Arsenal, comes up to pelters. He threads towards the bottom left. Kepa reads and parries. First blood to Chelsea! Chelsea 1-1 Saints.
Marcos Alonso up first for Chelsea. Into the bottom right it goes, Fraser Forster no chance. Chelsea 1-1 Saints.
The shoot-out at Stamford Bridge begins. Adam Armstrong of Southampton is up first. Kepa makes a performative song and dance of feeling the ball before he can take the kick. Armstrong whips it into the top left. Chelsea 0-1 Saints.
Tonight’s two other fourth-round games are going to penalties. Chelsea and Southampton have drawn 1-1, QPR and Sunderland 0-0. News of those coming right up.
FULL TIME: Arsenal 2-0 Leeds United
Harrison has a late shot blocked. Gelhardt lashes another into the side netting. And that’s that. Arsenal will be in Saturday’s quarter-final draw, having earned payback for that 1968 final defeat!
90 min +2: Eddie Nketiah has been named man of the match by Sky.
90 min: Should Arsenal see this out - and they almost certainly will, with only four extra minutes remaining - they’ll be eight unbeaten in all competitions. A fine recovery after that cold start to the season.
89 min: Lacazette robs a dithering Phillips, barges past Cooper and Dallas, and creams a rising shot that only just misses the top-left corner.
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87 min: Leeds are still battling - do you expect anything else from a Bielsa side? - but the passes aren’t sticking. They were marginally the better side in the first half; they’ve been very much second best since the restart.
85 min: Summerville bowls over Lokonga. Nothing much in it, but a chance for Arsenal to manage the clock, and they take their time over the restart.
83 min: Greenwood spins cutely down the right, reaches the byline, and fizzes low and hard into the six-yard box. An easy gather for Leno.
82 min: Not much going on. Mikel Arteta exudes an air of satisfied calm.
80 min: Phillips, perhaps still a bit rusty after his injury lay-off, shanks a simple pass out of play. Then, tired and frustrated, he’s late in on Lokonga. No booking. Leeds look a beaten docket.
78 min: By the way, to be fair to Nketiah, it was excellent anticipation, and a deliciously deft touch that took him around Meslier for the goal ... and he was more than aware that he nearly missed the tap-in with his scuff. A self-deprecating laugh as he celebrated with his team-mates.
76 min: Holding has picked up a knock and is replaced by Tavares.
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74 min: Gelhardt has looked lively since coming on. He tears down the left channel and very nearly draws a reckless challenge from Holding just inside the Arsenal box. Holding recovers his senses just in time and pulls away, ushering Gelhardt out wide instead.
72 min: Arsenal make their first changes, replacing Elneny and Smith Rowe with Lokonga and Lacazette.
70 min: That could have been one of the all-time misses. Instead, it looks like being the killer blow. If you really can land a killer blow with your shin. Leeds respond with their final roll of the dice: Summerville and Greenwood come on for Rodrigo and James.
GOAL! Arsenal 2-0 Leeds (Nketiah 69)
A long ball down the left channel. Cooper’s poor header back to his keeper is latched onto by Nketiah, who intercepts, circumvents Meslier, and bundles into the open net. Bundle being the operative word: he shins it from a couple of yards, and the ball only just squeaks across the face of goal and into the bottom right!
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68 min: Gelhardt and Klich combine crisply on the edge of the Arsenal D. The ball’s laid off to Harrison on the right. Harrison’s shot carries no conviction. Arsenal go up the other end, and ...
66 min: Pepe is sent scampering down the right by Nketiah. He’s got Smith Rowe free in the middle! He should send him clear on goal, but overcooks the pass, the ball curling off to the left wing, pushing Smith Rowe away from the danger zone. A real chance to all but seal this fourth-round tie.
65 min: Arsenal are fully on top right now. On the touchline, Marcelo Bielsa looks on pensively.
63 min: It took Chambers fully 22 seconds to score after entering the field of play, incidentally.
61 min: Maitland-Niles flicks a clever pass down the inside-left channel to give Nketiah the edge. Nketiah bursts into the box and shoots from a tight angle. Meslier claims, but that was a fine explosive move out of nowhere.
59 min: Leeds make their third change, replacing Llorente with Cooper. When play restarts, Cedric is booked for a cynical tug on an in-flight Dallas.
58 min: That hadn’t exactly been coming ... but Arsenal had been the better team since the restart. Arsenal’s fans explode in glee; the Leeds supporters soon break out in Marching on Together. Sonically, it’s like 1972 all over again.
GOAL! Arsenal 1-0 Leeds (Chambers 56)
What an introduction to the game by Chambers! His first touch opens the scoring! The corner’s hit long. Pepe heads back across the face of goal. Chambers heads powerfully down. Meslier tries to claw off the line. The ball’s bundled out for a corner, but then the referee’s watch buzzes! The ball crossed the line, despite Meslier’s best effort! Seconds after Chambers came on!
Photograph: Chloe Knott - Danehouse/Getty Images
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55 min: White can’t continue. Chambers comes on in his place. Then from the corner ...
54 min: Martinelli wins a corner for Arsenal down the left. Before it can be taken, the physio comes on to take a look at White.
53 min: Leeds make their second change, replacing Roberts with the electric Gelhardt, who proved a proper game-changer at the weekend against Wolves. Some of the home crowd do the “Who?!” thing, which they may regret later on, should the 19-year-old winger replicate his heroics of the weekend.
52 min: Martinelli tries to pick it up by running with purpose down the middle. His eventual shot is blocked on the edge of the box.
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51 min: Maitland-Niles slips a clever pass down the right channel and nearly releases Nketiah into the Leeds box. Struijk is fully switched on and toe-pokes out for a corner. Before Cedric can take it, the referee gives everyone in the six-yard box a good old lecture. Then the ball comes in, whereupon Harrison lashes clear. This second half hasn’t really got going yet.
49 min: Southampton have equalised at Stamford Bridge, Che Adams scoring not long after the restart.
48 min: Drameh and Martinelli come together again; Martinelli comes off worse again. There wasn’t much in that, to be honest, but there’s a break in play as the Arsenal man gets checked over by the physio. He’s good to continue.
46 min: Incidentally, both sides can make five changes tonight, in a maximum of three blocks.
Leeds get the second half underway. They’ve made a change, replacing Forshaw with Klich in the midfield. Arsenal send out the same XI.
Half-time scores. Elsewhere in the League Cup fourth round, Chelsea are 1-0 up against Southampton, Kai Havertz having scored just before the break, while in the battle of the mid-1980s League Cup nearly men, QPR and Sunderland are drawing 0-0.
HALF TIME: Arsenal 0-0 Leeds United
... and that’s your lot. We’re 45 minutes away from a penalty shoot-out!
44 min: Leeds have enjoyed 52 percent of possession so far. Sounds about right. They’ve been marginally the better side. “Do you, or does anyone else, know why certain footballers have started wearing their socks over their knees, Folies Bergere style?” asks Rod Wooden, no doubt having clocked Ben White with a rueful shake of the head. I have no idea. Thierry Henry affectations? Anyone?
42 min: Smith Rowe bursts down the right and wins a corner off Phillips. Kolasinac wins a header from Cedric’s delivery, but doesn’t get any real purchase on it. Leeds only half-clear, however, and they gift Smith Rowe a half-chance on the edge of the box. He slashes at his shot and sends it high and wide left.
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41 min: Here’s Simon McMahon: “That 1968 League Cup final looks like Spain 2012 compared to some Scottish League Two fixtures I’ve seen this season. Like going to a fight and seeing a football game break out.”
39 min: Arsenal win a corner. Leeds nullify the danger and counter. Once again, they nearly open the hosts up down the left, but Dallas can’t quite get past Elneny and Cedric, arriving just in time.
38 min: A long pass down the inside right nearly releases Rodrigo, but Leno is off his line quickly to smother. David de Gea, beaten all ends up by Mohamed Salah the other day, is hopefully taking notes.
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36 min: Nothing comes of the corner. As Arsenal launch a counter, Martinelli runs into Drameh’s outstretched arm and goes down clutching his face. On the touchline, an animated and annoyed Arteta mimes a swinging arm, but the referee doesn’t even award a free kick, which seems about right, because replays suggest the pair of young men were fairly contesting a 50-50 ball.
35 min: Leeds counter, Drameh finding James upfield on the right. The ball’s shuttled inside for Rodrigo, who dummies to let the ball through to Roberts. Roberts enters the box and should take a first-time shot, but checks before pulling the trigger. His evenutal effort is deflected out for a corner.
34 min: Maitland-Niles drives down the middle and feeds Pepe on the right. Some pinball ensues, and the ball clanks out for another Arsenal corner. Cedric swings the ball into a pocket of blue shirts, and Leeds clear easily.
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32 min: ... so having said that, Arsenal spend their first meaningful spell in Leeds territory for a while. They don’t really do much during it, but it’s welcome relief after that period of Leeds dominance.
30 min: Phillips and James combine crisply down the inside-right channel, the latter then shuttling the ball left for Dallas, who so nearly releases Rodrigo into the box down the channel. Not quite, but Leeds are gaining the upper hand here.
29 min: From the corner, Phillips heads down for James, who sends a pea-roller through a crowded box and into the arms of Leno.
28 min: Dallas releases James down the left with a cute backheel. James has options in the middle, so the corner he wins is very much the second prize.
26 min: Leeds come again, though, Harrison swinging one in from the right, looking for Rodrigo. White flicks out for a corner. From the set piece, Harrison fires low towards the bottom right. It’s a fine, firm shot, through a crowded area and on target to boot, but Leno does extremely well to get down and parry. The nearest either side have come.
25 min: Yes, but Meslier punches it powerfully clear, allowing James to break upfield on the counter. Racing down the right, he can’t find anyone in the middle.
24 min: It gets scrappy. Pepe and Dallas grab each other and do-si-do down the right touchline. Eventually they let go, Arsenal benefiting from a free kick. That’s thrown into the mixer, Pepe having a dig from the edge of the box. It’s deflected out for another corner on the right. Can Cedric keep this one in play?
23 min: Roberts is booked for a cynical tug on the marauding White.
22 min: Harrison tries a shot ... or is it an ambitious looped pass? ... from distance. Either way, it’s no good.
20 min: Pepe cuts in from the right before spraying a wild shot miles over the bar. This game is threatening to open up, but neither keeper has had their hands warmed yet.
19 min: Llorente nearly releases James with a simple blooter down the middle. A better touch would see James one on one with Leno and most probably poking home. It would have been as simple as that. Mikel Arteta isn’t happy about it.
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18 min: A wee lull. It’s a shame the Emirates pitch is so nice, because is there any fixture in English football more evocative of the 1970s than Arsenal-Leeds? Leeds-Derby maybe.
16 min: That corner is a non-event.
15 min: Plenty of space for Rodrigo down the right, sent clear by Drameh. Rodrigo slows down and takes an age before deciding to run into a thicket of players. Roberts retrieves the situation by forcing a shot that’s deflected out for Leeds’ first corner.
14 min: A speculative ball forward by White forces Dallas into the concession of a corner on the right. Cedric hoicks the set piece straight out of play for a goal kick.
13 min: Arsenal are much the better side in these opening exchanges. Pepe has another look down the right, only to be stopped by Dallas.
11 min: One corner leads to another, and the second is cleared. Meanwhile a replay shows that Llorente got a bit of the ball in that coming together with Maitland-Niles, so all’s good in the end.
10 min: Llorente and Maitland-Niles compete for a long pass down the middle. The latter beats the former; the former clips the latter from behind. Arsenal claim for a penalty, but there’s no foul, and the ball breaks to Martinelli, whose shot from a tight angle on the left is deflected out for a corner. Hearts in mouths for Leeds there, and Llorente may well have got away with one.
9 min: Llorente nearly releases Rodrigo down the middle with a forensic pass, but Elneny intervenes. Arsenal counter through Martinelli, who romps into acres down the left, but upon drifting infield he’s stopped by Llorente.
7 min: Leeds show in attack for the first time, Harrison slipping a ball down the left flank to release the speedy James. The flag pops up for offside.
6 min: Nketiah probes with purpose down the left and reaches the byline. Llorente does well to stop him getting any further infield. Then another phase of Arsenal attack, and Nketiah drags a shot wide left from the edge of the box. He might have been offside, but it doesn’t matter. Arsenal have started brightly.
4 min: Martinelli whips the ball off the toe of the debutant Drameh, who was dozing out on the right. The young man is very fortunate that Martinelli then miscontrols and runs the ball out for a goal kick. Llorente points out to Drameh that it might not be the best policy to wait for the ball to come to him.
2 min: Arsenal launch their first attack of the evening, Pepe making good down the right and winning the first corner of the match. Holding nearly wins a header, six yards out ... but doesn’t quite connect, and Leeds are able to clear their lines.
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Arsenal get the ball rolling ... but only after everyone takes the knee. There’s no room for racism. Kick it out.
The teams are out! Arsenal are in their ersatz Ajax effort, while Leeds sport second-choice dark blue. A fine atmosphere at the Emirates, with the home fans giving it their all, and Leeds having taken plenty of fans down with them. We’ll be off in a couple of minutes!
This is the first time Arsenal and Leeds have met in the League Cup since 1979. Leeds will be hoping to do rather better than they did that September evening at Highbury. Jimmy Adamson’s side were trounced 7-0, Liam Brady helping himself to a couple, Alan Sunderland scoring a hat-trick. Adamson was nothing if not trenchant in his post-match analysis: “They were magic and we were rubbish.” If that didn’t tell the story, the legendary Guardian reporter David Lacey underlined the sentiment: “The astonishing part of the performance was the fact that no depth of incompetence appeared to be beyond the Leeds team.”
Mikel Arteta makes nine changes to the Arsenal side selected for the win over Aston Villa last Friday. Ben White and Emile Smith Rowe are the only two players to keep their starting places.
Marcelo Bielsa makes four changes to the Leeds team that scrambled a draw with Wolves at the weekend. The 19-year-old right-back Cody Drameh makes his debut, while Kalvin Phillips returns from injury. Raphinha is injured and misses out.
The teams
Arsenal: Leno, Cedric, Holding, White, Kolasinac, Elneny, Maitland-Niles, Pepe, Smith-Rowe, Martinelli, Nketiah.
Subs: Thomas, Saka, Lacazette, Tavares, Chambers, Sambi Lokonga, Balogun, Ramsdale.
Leeds United: Meslier, Drameh, Struijk, Llorente, Dallas, Phillips, Forshaw, James, Roberts, Harrison, Rodrigo.
Subs: Cooper, Klaesson, Gelhardt, Hjelde, Cresswell, Summerville, McKinstry, Greenwood, Klich.
Referee: Andre Marriner (West Midlands).
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Preamble
Welcome to a rerun of the 1968 League Cup final, a Wembley showdown described by British Pathé as “one of the most unglamorous soccer matches ever witnessed on the perfect turf of the famous stadium”. This is one of the all-time great clips, featuring Lofthousian barges on keepers, “shameful” free-for-alls, “ugly” scenes, Billy Bremner performing a roly-poly celebration, a three-cops-versus-one-punter chucking-out-time-style brouhaha, and an acerbic, tinder-dry, none-more-British commentary. More, please, Arsenal and Leeds! Kick off is at 7.45pm BST. It’s on!
