League Cup wrap: Chelsea claim nine-goal thriller

Chelsea have exacted revenge on Manchester United courtesy of a 5-4 extra-time win in the League Cup, having trailed on three occasions.

For the second time in four days Chelsea and Manchester United played out a thriller at Stamford Bridge, with the hosts gaining some revenge for their 3-2 Premier League defeat by booking their spot in the quarter-finals of the League Cup.

After the chaos of the weekend, it was perhaps little surprise that the first half was a frenetic affair, played at great pace, with goals, bookings, a penalty and the visitors from Manchester once again heading into the break 2-1 ahead.

Yet there was more than a hint of farce about United’s opening goal with Petr Cech’s short kick out to Romeu allowing Anderson to nick the ball off the Spaniard and find Ryan Giggs who finished clinically to open the scoring.

The goal sparked Chelsea into life, and by the half hour mark they were level.

The lively Victor Moses burst into the box only to be brought down by Alexander Buttner, giving the referee an easy decision to point to the spot and David Luiz made no mistake.

But Chelsea fell behind once again just minutes before the break with Anderson passing to Javier Hernandez and the Mexican finished smartly past Cech for his sixth goal in nine appearances against the Blues.

Just seven minutes into the second half, Mata’s corner was thundered home by Gary Cahill to make the score 2-2.

Nani gave Manchester United the lead again in the 59th minute and Chelsea had to wait until the fourth minute of stoppage time and a penalty from Eden Hazard to equalise.

Chelsea struck twice in extra time through Daniel Sturridge and Ramires and although Giggs converted a 120th-minute penalty, the home team held on for victory.

In other League Cup results on Wednesday, Norwich struck twice in the last six minutes to defeat Tottenham 2-1, while Swansea gave former manager Brendan Rodgers a headache with a 3-1 win away to Liverpool.