Mikel Arteta’s side already carried a 3-2 advantage from the opening game at Stamford Bridge to north London.<\/p>\n
And former Chelsea player Havertz made sure of Arsenal\u2019s progression to next month\u2019s showpiece at Wembley \u2013 their first final since they won the FA Cup in 2020 \u2013 when he rounded goalkeeper Robert Sanchez to score with the last kick of the game.<\/p>\n
Arsenal are six points clear in the race for the Premier League, and through to the knockout stages of the Champions League with a perfect record in Europe.<\/p>\n
And the Carabao Cup will now present them with their first chance to lift a trophy this season, and just the second of Arteta\u2019s six-year reign.<\/p>\n
Standing in Arteta\u2019s way on 22 March is likely to be his old club, Manchester City, with Pep Guardiola\u2019s side holding a two-goal lead over Newcastle heading into Wednesday\u2019s return leg at the Etihad Stadium.<\/p>\n
The opening contest of the last-four encounter at Stamford Bridge was a goal fest, but with next month\u2019s final on the line, this was a significantly cagier affair.<\/p>\n
Liam Rosenior, who prior to Tuesday night had masterminded five consecutive wins, deployed five players across Chelsea\u2019s backline to nullify Arsenal\u2019s threat, and it worked with Piero Hincapie recording the hosts\u2019 sole shot of the first half when he forced Sanchez into a decent save from range after 18 minutes.<\/p>\n
Arsenal\u2019s success from set-pieces has been well-documented in recent times. But for each of their corners here, Chelsea pushed three players forward, and as many red shirts were forced to follow. It had the desired effect with Arsenal lacking their usual set-piece potency.<\/p>\n
Then, as half-time approached, former Chelsea goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga punched clear Enzo Fernandez\u2019s strike from distance.<\/p>\n
![\"Chelsea](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/0023d7e5-614.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Into the second half and the advantage was still with Arsenal, but while the Blues remained within one goal the last-four tie continued to hang in the balance.<\/p>\n
Cole Palmer and Estevao were introduced on the hour mark as Chelsea went in search of levelling the match on aggregate before Marc Cucurella and then Fernandez tried their luck, unsuccessfully, from range.<\/p>\n
Arsenal were starting to show some jitters, and Declan Rice urged his team-mates, and quite possibly the crowd, too, to calm down in what was proving an increasingly feisty affair.<\/p>\n
With 14 minutes remaining, Gabriel had a decent chance to put Arsenal in the clear, but his header from Martin Zubimendi\u2019s cross was diverted away from danger by Cucurella.<\/p>\n
At the other end, Wesley Fofana\u2019s flick from a corner flashed past Kepa\u2019s near post. Fernandez then flashed an effort high and wide in the 90th minute with six additional minutes to be played.<\/p>\n
The visitors pushed and probed, but in truth, never looked like getting the goal to force extra time, and in the end it was Havertz who picked up Rice\u2019s pass before delivering a composed finish as Arsenal\u2019s impressive season goes from strength-to-strength.<\/p>\n
Listen to the RT\u00c9 Soccer podcast on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kai Havertz scored the winner deep in stoppage time as Arsenal edged one step closer to ending their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-279504","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}