Middlesbrough 1-0 Chelsea: Hayden Hackney’s Goal Gives Championship Side First-Leg Advantage in Carabao Cup Semi-Final… as Cole Palmer’s Miss Costs Blues in Ninth Defeat of the Season

Michael Carrick does not like the Golden Generation comparisons. Little wonder, he is making a fine job of management.

He joked this week that the media never considered him part of that set as a player. Now, he is distancing himself from their managerial travails all on his own.

Middlesbrough were brilliant value for the one-goal lead they will take to Stamford Bridge in a fortnight. In his first full season in the dugout, Carrick is one game away from taking a seat at Wembley.

He needs that less than Mauricio Pochettino, but his team certainly wanted it more than the Argentine’s on a night when it felt as if the visitors were playing with the complacency of knowing a second leg is to come. 

The manager might not have a leg to stand on if they fail to turn the tie around.

Pochettino said beforehand that Chelsea needed to treat Middlesbrough like they were the best team in the world. 

Maybe his players took that instruction too literally – because it was not until Boro scored through Hayden Hackney late in the first half did they try to exert any of the superiority that should have been evident from the off.

The past and present told us why Chelsea were overwhelming favourites. 

For Boro, they had gone from the plum draw of Port Vale in the quarter-final to the bitter lemon of the Blues. They had lost their previous nine against the West Londoners. Not just that, the last time they met in this competition was in the final of 1998, a 2-0 defeat. That was Paul Gascoigne’s debut and, despite being a second-tier side, he was one of seven internationals. 

Here, that number was zero. It served to highlight the gulf between the Championship and Premier League, not that you would have known.

Pochettino naming two goalkeepers on a bench of one substitute less than the number permitted did not garner much sympathy, not when they started with two midfielders in Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo who both cost north of £100million.

Completing the midfield was Conor Gallagher, and you suspect Pochettino is using the captain’s armband as barbed wire around a player he wants to keep this month. The club fancy the ‘pure profit’ of selling an academy graduate in an FFP world.

There is another way to beat off-the-pitch restrictions, and that is to perform better than Chelsea currently are on it. Caicedo and Fernandez were put in the shade by Boro’s Dan Barlasar in the first half. By contrast, everything he did lit up the game, and this a £900,000 signing from Rotherham.

Chelsea started how they intended to continue – badly. 

Malo Gusto attempted to head back to his goalkeeper inside 30 seconds, at least that’s what you assumed he meant. The left-back made such a mess of it that Boro’s Emmanuel Latte Lathe found himself in the clear. Maybe the Ivorian was caught cold – it was 2C on kick-off – because Axel Disasi made enough ground to distract the striker, whose weak shot was gathered by Djordje Petrovic.

It was only on viewing a replay did you realise why Latte Lathe had remained on the ground – the connection of Disasi’s studs on his ankle. 

Would VAR intervene? 

Well, it might have done had the absence of the technology at the Riverside not led the EFL to remove it entirely from both semi-finals. 

Latte Lathe was substituted and Chelsea avoided the concession of a penalty.

Don’t forget, the Blues might not have been here had VAR been in use in the last round, when Caicedo ran his studs down the ankle of Newcastle’s Anthony Gordon inside the first minute and escaped with a booking.

Carrick spoke on the eve of the game about his key belief being encouraging his players to express themselves. They must have been listening, because the hosts put on a show from the off and deservedly led on 37 minutes. 

Barlaser dropped a ball of perfect weight for Isaiah Jones to chase and the winger turned Levi Colwill inside and out before rolling into the six-yard box for Hackney to turn home.

The scorer only returned to the team last week after six weeks out, and with it returned the Premier League talent spotters. They were here again last night and, while the 21-year-old will remain this month – especially given the possibility of a Carabao Cup final – he will almost certainly be playing in the top-flight next season. 

Boro will need promotion for that to be with their club.

But if Barlaser was Boro’s best in the opening 45 minutes then Chelsea’s Cole Palmer was not far behind in contributing to the home side’s advantage. 

His miss in stoppage-time drew laughter from the Riverside crowd, a volley over the crossbar from three yards after Tom Glover had spilt a shot into his path. 

Palmer was not laughing and nor was he earlier in the half when intercepting Jonny Howson’s errant pass and, with just Glover to beat, he dragged the ball wide.

Glover had only one save to make in the second half, and even that was a routine catch from Noni Madueke’s header. Carrick’s side had shown flair and resistance.

Pochettino, meanwhile, is starting to look more like the Golden Generation he once played against.