Dean Smith is a happy man.
Ed Aarons kept a close eye on Aston Villa’s new signing.
That’s it for tonight’s blog. I’m off to book my tickets for Wembley in March; Lewis Capaldi’s doing a two-night residence. Thanks for your company and emails - goodnight.
“Who do you support Rob?” says Sean Tizzard. “Be honest? Without Nyland, Villa would have been dead and buried. But still you can only praise Grealish’s 40-yard wonder balls and get the balance of your tweets all wrong. Read them again. A journalist didn’t offer them - a Villa fan did…”
I am so busted. I have Peter Withe underpants you know.
Orjan Nyland speaks “It was crazy at the end of the game, through the roof really. Unbelievable. The first 15 minutes they put a lot of pressure on us, so they take the lead was massive. We did well in the second half - we dug in another time and got the winner. [Is that your best performance for Villa?] Yeah, definitely. The first leg was my best performance, but to come out and do it again was amazing. I hope to play at Wembley, yeah!”
“Biased Guardian shit...” says Sean Tizzard. “Have you got a Villa supporter doing your comments tonight? Lovely scenes for who? Let’s have some balance.”
Oh for heaven’s sake. There were lovely scenes for any neutral who quite enjoys it when nice things happen to underdogs and decent human beings. Like at the King Power Stadium on - ooh, let’s pick a date at random - the 7th May 2016.
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“Cracking game, but both Villa goals came from Pereira’s side,” says Rob Moore. “He’s great going forward but Leicester have been gradually found out over the last month, largely through those holes where Perez should be.”
Yeah, he could have done better for the second goal. Not sure about the first, as he was left one against two.
Jack Grealish speaks
“I just think it shows what character we’ve got in the team. This time last month we were in a sticky patch – we couldn’t string five passes together, never mind a win. It’s brilliant for the club: another trip to Wembley, and we’re looking forward to it.
“In the first leg we were under so much pressure; today I thought we were brilliant. I’m over the moon to be going back to Wembley. Now we have to try to get out of the bottom five.”
Dean Smith, the Villa supporter and manager, gives Nyland a never-ending pat on the back in the tunnel. These are lovely scenes.
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Ezri Konsa will be able to play in the final. I thought he would miss out after his yellow card, but the FA have said that isn’t the case.
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Trezeguet, who scored the winner, and Orjan Nyland, who made umpteen saves across both legs, will take a long time to get off the field. Jack Grealish and Matt Targett were also immense.
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Full time: Aston Villa 2-1 Leicester
The final whistle goes: Villa are back at Wembley, and there’s an almighty pitch invasion!
90+7 min Maddison hits the wall - and that’s it!
90+6 min It’s still not over! Maddison has been fouled 30 yards from goal. This should be the last kick of the game...
90+5 min The corner is headed away to the edge of the box, and Ricardo lashes it over the bar. That should be it.
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90+4 min Leicester have a corner. Schmeichel is forward...
What a finish! Elmohamady, deep on the right, curled a glorious ball between the Leicester defenders and keeper. It went beyond the far post to Trezeguet, who cushioned a beautiful left-footed volley across Schmeichel and into the far corner.
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GOAL! Aston Villa 2-1 Leicester (Trezeguet 90+3)
Aston Villa are going to Wembley!!!!
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90+1 min “With 15 shots at goal,” deadpuns Matt Stephens, “are Leicester City overusing the Maddison Avenue?”
90 min Four minutes of added time, and then a penalty competition.
89 min Maddison curls a corner to the far post, where the under-pressure heads this far wide. Actually, it was even closer than that. It may have got a touch off Konsa as well. Either way, it was inches wide.
86 min Demarai Gray belatedly replaces Harvey Barnes.
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85 min I reckon James Maddison has had 15 shots in this tie. Maybe he’s due.
84 min Another Villa change, with the right wing-back Guilbert replaced by Ahmed Elmohamady.
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82 min: Chance for Villa on the break! Davis slides an angled through pass to Trezeguet, who moves into the area on the left but hits a fairly tame shot that is comfortably held by the tumbling Schmeichel.
81 min “Hi Rob,” says Patrick. “Away goals, etc: does any knockout competition anywhere use time ahead to separate teams? I mean, where Team A’s 70 minutes in the lead (their 10th-minute goal against Team B’s on 80 mins) in a 1-1 draw gets them the result?”
Not that I know of. Imaginative though it is, I’m not sure about that idea; I can see a lot of parked buses.
80 min: Double chance for Leicester! Vardy’s low cross was miskicked by Iheanacho at the near post, and Maddison put the loose ball over the bar from 15 yards. I suspect Villa would take penalties now. As with Romania and England at France 98, only one team is going to score here.
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78 min Maddison’s deflected cross is kicked behind by Mings. Leicester are going for the kill.
77 min Another Villa change: Trezeguet on, El Ghazi off.
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76 min Soyuncu, who might have been booked earlier, gets a yellow card for a high tackle on Grealish.
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75 min Demarai Gray was about to come on for Harvey Barnes when Leicester equalised. Now he is back on the bench, sporting a mildly affronted coupon.
As things stand, the tie is going to penalties. Leicester moved the ball nicely from left to right and then back across again. Barnes swerved away from Guilbert on the edge of the area and hammered a speculative low cross into ths six-yard box. It cleared everyone in front of goal but reached Iheanacho beyond the far post, and he finished gleefully from close range. It was a harder chance than it looked, actually, because of the pace on the ball. Iheanacho adjusted his feet quickly on the run and slammed it in with his left foot.
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GOAL! Aston Villa 1-1 Leicester (Iheanacho 72)
Kelechi Iheanacho scores against Aston Villa again!
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69 min Maddison’s snapshot from the right side of the area goes high and wide of the near post. Jamie Vardy hasn’t touched the ball since coming on 14 minutes ago.
69 min Targett’s very deep corner from the right is headed over by Konsa. He just couldn’t over the ball; had he done so it would have been a fairly simple header because Schmeichel was nowhere.
67 min A Villa substitution. The debutant Ally Samatta, who worked extremely hard but looked short of a gallop, is replaced by Keinan Davis.
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66 min Jack Grealish is having a stormer.
64 min: Samatta misses a great chance! Grealish, lurking 40 yards from goal in the inside-right channel, curled a stunning pass between the defenders and goalkeeper that zipped past the unmarked Samatta at the far post. It did bounce a little awkwardly, but he should still have scored. He was four yards from goal and missed the ball completely. It was such a good pass from Grealish, the sort you’d expect from Trent Alexander-Arnold or Kevin De Bruyne.
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63 min Grealish’s superb left-footed cross is about to reach Guilbert at the far post when Chilwell flies towards his own goal and heads behind for a corner. Great defending.
62 min Grealish blasts high and wide from the left corner of the box after a one-two with his partner-in-crime Targett. Those two have combined brilliantly all night.
61 min Villa look relatively comfortable at the moment. Relatively. Leicester are showing the first signs of impatience.
60 min Now Douglas Luiz is booked for kicking the ball away.
59 min Barnes wriggles away from two Villa defenders on the edge of the area. He overruns the ball but it comes to Iheanacho, who turns and places a shot too close to Nyland. That was his most comfortable save of the night.
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58 min Leicester have switched to a 4-D-2 formation since Vardy came on, with Iheanacho alongside him up front.
Mings, who was struggling a few minutes ago, seems okay for now.
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57 min Konsa is booked for throwing the ball away, which means he’ll miss the final if Villa get there.
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56 min Jamie Vardy is on for Leicester, a bit earlier than expected. The anonymous Ayoze Perez comes off.
55 min Soyuncu flattens Grealish and is a bit lucky not to be booked. The two go head to head after Soyuncu accuses Grealish of diving, but they soon shake hands and make up.
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54 min Targett finds Grealish just inside the box on the left. He escapes a Soyuncu-Maddison sandwich but then drags his shot well wide of the near post. Moments later, Targett cracks a shot wide of the far post from 20 yards. Grealish’s was the better chance.
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53 min Mings is struggling. It looks like he pulled a muscle when he was stretched to make that interception a couple of minutes ago.
53 min There have been a few zesty challenges since half-time, and it feels like the game could boil over.
52 min Ndidi curls a dangerous through pass towards Iheanacho that is crucially intercepted by the stretching Mings.
49 min Tielemans flashes a dangerous ball right across the six-yard box. Leicester have made a fast start to the second half, as they did the first.
48 min ... and nothing comes of it.
47 min Barnes wins a corner for Leicester, which will be taken by Maddison...
46 min Peep peep! Leicester begin the second half. No changes on either side.
“Okay, time to add another VAR disaster to the list,” says J.R in Illinois. “Upon replay that was a blatant handball by Nakamba. Who’s the VAR for this game? Are they afraid to tell Mike Dean he missed something? Oh man it’s so maddening.”
Half time: Aston Villa 1-0 Leicester
Peep peep! Aston Villa lead through Matt Targett’s early goal. It was a superb half of football, with Villa looking dangerous on the break and Leicester forcing three seriously good saves from Orjan Nyland. See you soon for the second half.
44 min Villa break four on four, with El Ghazi’s cross headed over his own bar by Soyuncu. They’ve been a threat on the counter-attack all night.
43 min “As Nyland dominates through his fingertip brilliance,” begins Michael Hughes, “it’s hard not to acknowledge Schmeichel’s weary trudge towards his only honour this season: The Annual Roy Keane Memorial, Most Overrated Player of his Generation Award. Sad.”
41 min Leicester have upped their game in the last five minutes or so, with Villa struggling to get out of their half.
40 min “Rob, why do you think the away goals rule is antiquated?” says Paul-Derek Flint. “Excitement never goes out of fashion.”
Well, the away goal doesn’t have a monopoly on excitement - this game has been pretty good, for example. As for why, I suppose the argument is that teams are less likely to play for a 0-0 away from home, as they did during the golden age of catenaccio. I think it’s quite hard to justify the away-goals rule, logically and philosophically, although as I said I do really like it. The tension in the second leg, when the draw is no longer possible, is delicious. But you could also argue that it’s contrived.
38 min This is a brilliant game. Grealish and Targett combine superbly on the left again before Targett cuts the ball back towards Samatta at the near post. He can’t sort his feet out in time and miskicks his attempted first-time shot. That was a decent chance, although it was a sharp cutback from Targett.
36 min I’ve seen a replay now, and under the new laws I’m not sure why it wasn’t a penalty. Maddison’s shot hit Nakamba’s outstretched arm just inside the area. It wasn’t deliberate - Nakamba wasn’t even looking the ball - but his hand was surely in an unnatural position.
34 min: Tielemans hits the bar! It was another great save from Nyland. Tielemans played a one-two on the left, cut inside and hit a cracking rising drive from 20 yards that was pawed onto the bar by Nyland. Maddison then appealed for a penalty when his follow-up shot was blocked. VAR decided there was no handball, although I haven’t seen a replay.
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31 min There has been nothing in the game since Targett’s goal. You could argue that, for all Leicester’s possession, Villa have been the more dangerous side in the last 20 minutes.
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29 min Maddison loses Nakamba beautifully on the edge of the centre circle, advances to within 25 yards of goal and then slashes a shot well wide.
28 min “I’m really glad that Brendan isn’t leaving anything in the bag, instead sending out his best,” says Hubert O’Hearn. “If the last couple of days taught us anything, a couple of days that have advanced the dismembering of the Spurs ‘nearly team’ and the death of basketball’s Kobe Bryant at age 41 it is this: you get so very few chances in sport to complete what you started as a child kicking or shooting a tiny ball at a plastic net, when you have a real chance to touch the silverware, to really know what winning feels like, don’t let the moment pass. Because life, especially the sporting life, guarantees you no second chances, tomorrow may not come.”
26 min: Disallowed goal for Villa. Ndidi gets a last warning for a foul on Grealish, who has been immense so far. As I type that, Grealish plays a lovely angled through pass to release Guilbert - but he makes his run too early and is rightly flagged offside before he crosses for Samatta to score.
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24 min A few minutes of calm amid the storm. That goal has certainly had an impact on Leicester, who started the game like a team in a serious hurry. Now they need to be a bit more careful because another Villa goal would put them in serious trouble.
21 min The first quarter of the game has flown by, which is usually a good sign. A Leicester corner is headed away to Ricardo, who slashes the bouncing ball just wide from 25 yards. Nyland had it covered.
20 min El Ghazi’s deep cross from the right is cushioned neatly by Targett, back towards Grealish on the edge of the area. Ndidi gets out well to block Grealish’s first-time shot.
19 min The debutant Samatta pleases the crowd by harassing Tielemans into a mistake near the halfway line. He hasn’t seen much of the ball yet, with Villa playing largely on the break.
18 min Goals change games, and Leicester have yet to regain their strut since going behind.
16 min “Hi Rob,” says Matt Burtz. “What are your thoughts on the away goals rule not applying here? I understand that the reasoning behind the rule is probably antiquated, but I think it rewards attacking play and overall makes a two-legged affair more exciting.”
Most people I know hate the rule. I’ve always loved it, particularly in Europe, because of the exquisite tension. But like you, I appreciate it’s probably antiquated.
15 min Maddison shoves Grealish over 25 yards from goal, a silly and needless foul. El Ghazi curls it just over the bar. I think Schmeichel would have it covered as he scrambled to his left, but it was a fine effort.
The goal came from a good Villa counter-attack. It was made by Grealish, who held off Ricardo just inside the Leicester area while he waited for support. Eventually he bounced a short reverse pass to the overlapping Targett, who smashed a first-time shot that whistled past the left leg of Schmeichel. He couldn’t decide whether to try to save it with his hands or feet; in the end, he did neither.
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GOAL! Aston Villa 1-0 Leicester (Targett 12)
Villa take the lead against the run of play!
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9 min Maddison completes a hat-trick of near misses. Already. It was another lovely fingertip save from Nyland, who was probably unsighted when Maddison cracked a left-footed shot from 20 yards. It was going in the corner until Nyland dived a long way to his left to push it round the post.
8 min Tacticswatch: Leicester are playing a 4-2-3-1, with Maddison further forward and Tielemans alongside Ndidi. Thus far it has worked; M addison could have scored twice.
7 min Another chance for Maddison, who slams a left-footed snapshot just wide from the edge of the box. Leicester have made a seriously fast start with and without the ball.
5 min: Brilliant save from Nyland! This has been a great start to the game. Leicester broke dangerously through Iheanacho, who found Maddison on the edge of the area. He beat Mings beautifully through sleight of hip and sidefooted a low shot towards the far corner. Nyland plunged to his left, strained every sinew in his left arm and just got enough on the ball to push it behind for a corner.
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4 min A lovely attack from Villa. Grealish plays a fine angled pass to the underlapping Targett, whose driven first-time cross is kicked away at the near post by the stretching Schmeichel with Samatta waiting behind him.
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2 min An early chance for Iheanacho! He has such a good record against Villa and almost scored inside two minutes. He was too strong for Mings as the pair wrestled for a bouncing ball on the left side of the area. His shirt was being pulled by Mings but he stayed on his feet and smashed a shot from a very tight angle that was blocked by Nyland.
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2 min There aren’t many empty seats now, and there’s a cracking noise as Villa attack for the first time. Chilwell lumps the ball clear.
1 min Peep peep! Villa kick off from right to left. They are in claret and blue; Leicester are in their dark grey away kit.
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There are a surprising number of empty seats at Villa Park, though that’s probably because thousands of supporters are in the bowels of the stadium quaffing something other than Carabao.
This is sheer delightful football writing
Brendanwatch “I think tonight could potentially reveal a little bit about Rodgers’ evolution as a coach,” says Stephen Carr. “Will he play his strongest team in their natural positions or will he try and be the smartest guy in the room with innumerable false nines, inverted pyramids and perhaps a rush goalie?”
It looks like the strongest team. I think Rodgers has a slightly unfair reputationt. He did and said a few ludicrous things when he was younger, but didn’t we all. In tactical terms, I’ve never really seen him as someone who tries to make the game about him.
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Pre-match reading
Team news
Ally Samatta, Villa’s new Tanzanian striker, goes straight into the starting XI. Jamie Vardy is only fit enough for the Leicester bench; but Wilfred Ndidi, who was badly missed in the first leg, returns to the starting line-up.
Aston Villa (3-4-2-1) Nyland; Konsa, Hause, Mings; Guilbert, Nakamba, Luiz, Targett; El Ghazi, Grealish; Samatta.
Substitutes: Sarkic, Elmohamady, Chester, Hourihane, Lansbury, Trezeguet, Davies.
Leicester City (4-1-4-1) Schmeichel; Ricardo, Evans, Soyuncu, Chilwell; Ndidi, Perez, Tielemans, Maddison, Barnes; Iheanacho.
Substitutes: Ward, Justin, Gray, Vardy, Albrighton, Benkovic, Praet.
Referee Mike Dean.
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Preamble
Hello and welcome to live coverage of the Carabao Cup semi-final second leg between Aston Villa and Leicester City. Tonight’s match is a cynicism-free zone. There will be no entitlement, no ennui at the prospect of another trip to Wembley; just two teams and sets of supporters who are desperate to reach a cup final.
Leicester have not done so since beating Tranmere in the final of this competition 20 years ago. It was known as the Worthington Cup back then, so sponsorship has progressed from booze to energy drinks. By the year 2040, they’ll be competing for the Matcha Latte Cup.
The last final Villa reached was the painful FA Cup hammering by Arsenal in 2015. The last time they won a trophy – not counting the mezzanine Intertoto Cup – was when they hammered Leeds 3-0 in the final of this competition in 1996.
Villa, in particular, will be big underdogs should they reach the final, as they are likely to face the same Manchester City side that plugged them 6-1 the other week. But they’d happily take their chances, because no side in history has won a trophy without first risking their dignity. Besides, beating one of the best teams in Leicester’s history would in itself be a memorable triumph.
Leicester start the match as favourites, despite being held to a 1-1 draw in the home leg. You probably know the revised regulations by now: no away-goals rule, no extra-time. If the teams are level after 90 minutes, it goes straight to penalties. May the best team win, and may their fans celebrate until all hours.
Kick-off is at 7.45pm GMT.
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