Paul Merson was shocked by Chelsea’s performance in their 1-0 defeat to Arsenal in the Carabao Cup semi-final second leg.

The Gunners sealed a 1-0 victory thanks to Kai Havertz’s breakthrough goal in stoppage time and secured a 4-2 aggregate victory to advance to the Carabao Cup final.

After a thrilling first leg in which they scored five goals at Stamford Bridge, Liam Roney’s side needed a goal to take the game into extra-time and they adopted a conservative approach to keep the game tight heading into the final stages but put little pressure on Arsenal.

Chelsea had 14 shots on goal, but only 2 were on target, and their expected goals against was just 0.68.

Merson said: “I was stunned. I couldn’t believe what I just saw. Chelsea are not a team in the bottom five. They have a World Cup winner.

“(Wesley) Fofana is crying. He should be crying because they never tried. They went out whimpering in the semifinals. It didn’t work. Go out with glory, don’t go out like this.”

“They’re playing in second gear. It’s the semi-finals of the cup.

“Chelsea have had players mix it up with Arsenal. But they didn’t try. If they lost 3-0 but had shot after shot and Kepa was brilliant and they were scored three times, that would be it.

“I’ve been in games where when you come off the field you think we just got beat and didn’t really make a difference.”

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