The big sides avoided upsets in the League Cup on Wednesday, though some of them just narrowly. Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea were challenged much more than they should have been. Manchester City, meanwhile, were not challenged at all.
League Cup scores: Manchester City, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur all advance
Michael Steele
Chelsea 2-1 Bolton Wanderers
Chelsea may have 26 players out on loan, but they still have a lot of really good backups. While the score doesn’t look convincing, they were pretty comfortably better than Bolton Wanderers and very unlucky to not score four or five goals.
Kurt Zouma got his first competitive goal in a Chelsea shirt in the 25th minute, but Matty Mills netted a very surprising equalizer six minutes later. Chelsea's winner came from Oscar in the 55th minute, and they held on to advance comfortably.
Manchester City 7-0 Sheffield Wednesday
The amazing thing about this score? It was 0-0 at halftime! But City started the half strong with three goals in the first 10 minutes of the half, which was followed by all hell breaking loose. Kamil Zayatte was shown a straight red card in the 59th minute, and the slaughter was on from there. Most notably, Frank Lampard scored twice and 18-year-old Jose Angel Pozo scored his first competitive goal for the Citizens.
Burton Albion 0-3 Brighton
And the tournament’s last true underdog bites the dust. Burton Albion were by far the smallest club remaining in the League Cup, and a home draw against Brighton gave them a reasonable chance of advancing. But unfortunately for them, Rohan Ince put Brighton up in the 18th minute, and that was that. Kazenga LuaLua and Craig Mackail-Smith added the Seagulls’ other two goals.
Tottenham Hotspur 3-1 Nottingham Forest
This game started off as an unmitigated disaster for Tottenham, who failed to hit the target in the first half and conceded in the 61st minute, with Jorge Grant putting Forest in front. But Spurs' subs made the difference, with Ryan Mason and Harry Kane coming in to save the day with goals for the North London side. Roberto Soldado scored in between the two Englishmen to grab the winner.
The two contests between Premier League teams were both seriously dramatic goalfests, and this one was a heartbreaker for Hull. West Brom went up early through Brown Ideye, but Hull scored the next two, grabbing the lead by the 50th minute through Tom Ince and Robbie Brady. But the Tigers collapsed in the final minutes, conceding an 87th minute equalizer to Gareth McAuley, then inexplicably falling apart right off the kickoff, with Saido Berahino scoring the winner a minute later.
Crystal Palace 2-3 Newcastle United
This match featured some fun self-deprecating humor from the Newcastle supporters, who sang “how s--- are you if we’re winning away?” after their team took the lead. Palace struck first through Dwight Gayle, who converted a 25th minute penalty, but Newcastle were level by halftime thanks to Emmanuel Riviere. The Frenchman completed a brace from the spot right after the start of the second half, but Palace stunned Newcastle with a 92nd minute equalizer from an unlikely source -- 19-year-old Sullay Kaikai, who joined Palace from Crawley Town.
Newcastle's Mehdi Abeid picked up a second yellow card and got himself sent off in extra time, but Newcastle found a winner with 10 men, with Paul Dummett finishing off a pass from 17-year-old wonderkid Adam Armstrong.
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