London heavyweights, Chelsea have qualified for the Carabao Cup semi-final after beating Newcastle United 4-2 on penalties at the Stamford Bridge Stadium on Tuesday night.
The match ended 1-1 which forced penalty shootouts to decide which team moved to the semi-final.
Africa Today News, New York reports that Newcastle were two minutes away from reaching the semi-final when Chelsea equalised on added time through substitute Mykhailo Mudryk.
Kieran Trippier made a huge mess of dealing with a cross. He headed it down to Mudryk, who slotted the ball in the bottom corner.
Newcastle had opened the scoring 15 minutes into the game through Callum Wilson. Wilson ran onto a loose Chelsea ball in his half and took it 50 yards. A Blues defender Badiashile got in his way and won the ball, before mis-kicking it back into the path of Wilson who fired home.
Chelsea scored all four of its penalties while Newcastle missed two, handing over the victory to the Blues.
The expensively assembled Blues, who have struggled for a second straight season in the Premier League, had seemed destined to throw away a precious chance of silverware until Mudryk’s late strike.
“Obviously it means a lot. Sometimes things happen when you trust in each other and believe until the end,” the Ukrainian – who has struggled to find his feet since signing for Chelsea nearly a year ago – told Sky Sports.
“Sometimes when the game is tough you need to keep pushing and believe until the last second because it’s football and everything can happen.”
Mudryk was one of four Chelsea players to score in the shootout, along with Nkunku, Cole Palmer and Conor Gallagher.
Chelsea, in their first season under Mauricio Pochettino, are pinning their hopes on the domestic cups as they currently sit 10th in the Premier League and did not qualify for European competition.
The defeat for Howe’s Newcastle – without a major trophy since the 1950s – represents a second blow in the space of a week after they were eliminated from the Champions League last Wednesday.