Villa head to Wembley
Aston Villa reached their first League Cup final for a decade with a dramatic 2-1 victory over Leicester in the second leg of their semi-final at Villa Park.
Trezeguet grabbed Villa’s stoppage-time winner to send the five-time victors to Wembley, giving them a 3-2 triumph on aggregate after Kelechi Iheanacho’s second-half strike had cancelled out Matt Targett’s 12th-minute opener.
Villa, though, owe a huge debt of gratitude to goalkeeper Orjan Nyland, who produced three outstanding first-half saves.
The opening ten minutes belonged to Leicester, and Nyland in particular.
An early chest block from an acute angle to deny Iheanachowas routine, but what followed was sublime.
A fifth-minute lay-off by Iheanacho for James Maddison resulted in a low rightfooted curler that was bound for the bottom corner, only for
Nyland to tip the ball beyond his left-hand post.
Maddison was then brilliantly thwarted by a fullystretched Nyland’s fingertips in the ninth minute.
In the 12th minute, Villa broke from deep in a good old-fashioned counter-punch. Douglas Luiz fed Jack Grealish who surged into the box, then played in the overlapping Targett, who struck a sweet firsttime drive from an acute angle beyond Kasper Schmeichel.
Villa were inches away from making it 2-0 in the 15th minute. Anwar El Ghazi curled a 25-yard free-kick fractionally over the bar after Maddison had brought down Grealish.
Next, Youri Tielemans’ curling strike was destined for the top corner, but with a clawing right hand, Nyland managed to push the ball on to the bar, and a big screen replay drew gasps and applause from the home fans.
Eighteen minutes from time Iheanacho arrived at the far post to meet Harvey Barnes’ threaded ball to fire the equaliser from close range but, in added time, Villa had the last word as Trezeguet met Ahmed Elmohamady’s deep ball to plant his shot back across Schmeichel and seal victory.