Chelsea, Mauricio Pochettino and a chance of silverware at Wembley

With the January transfer window currently unfolding with all the drama and high-octane excitement of a Liberal Democrat conference, the Worthington Cup looks set to regain its preeminent position as English football’s fourth most prestigious tournament. True, it may lack the prestige of the Premier League, FA Cup and summer transfer trolley dash, but its ever-ambitious organisers once tried to stage a draw for the competition in outer space, before settling instead on Aisle No 5 of a Morrisons supermarket in Colindale, just a short home delivery from Wembley Stadium for any van driver worth his salt.

Looking to build on their triumph last January, when they invested £323m on new players only to see their team drop from 10th to 12th in the Premier League, Chelsea booked their place in this year’s final when they made a mockery of their almost comical inability to hit a cow’s backside with a banjo by spanking six goals past Middlesbrough at Stamford Bridge to overturn a first leg semi-final deficit. It was a shot at redemption that would not have been afforded to them in 12 months’ time, as two-legged semis were supposed to be abolished from next season. However, it has now emerged this format will remain unchanged because money, of course … it’s always money. “As it stands there is no agreement in place to make any changes to the [Milk Cup’s] two-legged semi-final format, which continues to provide significant financial benefit to Football League clubs,” parped its chairman Trevor Birch, pointedly neglecting to mention that, as Tuesday night proved, it also significantly reduces any chance those clubs might have of making it to the final.

But back to Chelsea, who find themselves within one game of winning silverware on sovereign soil for the first time since pint-sized pocket rocket N’Golo Kanté hoisted Biggest Cup skywards at Windsor Park in 2021. As droughts go, it’s not a particularly long one, although winning at Wembley in a month’s time would certainly help Mauricio Pochettino get a particularly irritating monkey off his back. “I am desperate to win a title here,” cooed the Blues’ manager, who has lost two big finals with different clubs during his time in the Premier League. “We won, in one year and a half in Paris, three trophies. We want to win here, of course.”

If Pochettino is to make it third time lucky, his young side will need to beat Liverpool or Fulham, with the two sides scheduled to go toe-to-toe in the second leg of their semi-final at Craven Cottage later. Of course, the word ‘or’ in that sentence is doing a lot of heavy lifting because nobody gives Fulham a snowball’s chance in hell of overturning the 2-1 deficit and winning only their third semi-final in 145 years. Seeing them defy the odds and make it to Wembley would gladden the hearts of most neutrals, particularly those who had to sit through the past two finals contested by Liverpool and Chelsea. While the only spice normally associated with this west London rivalry comes in the form of the cayenne pepper and cumin which suffuse the half-time hummus at Craven Cottage, a straight shootout between both sides for a trophy at Wembley would be an occasion to behold.

Join Yara El-Shaboury now for Afcon coverage of Namibia 1-1 Mali and South Africa 1-1 Tunisia, while Niall McVeigh will be on deck at 8pm GMT for minute-by-minute updates from Fulham 1-2 Liverpool (agg: 2-4) in the second leg of their Milk Cup semi-final. And Sarah Rendell will also be in the hot seat with news from Chelsea 2-0 Real Madrid in Women’s Big Cup at 8pm too.

Monday 22 January: “I’ve been in the game a long, long time. I know if that doesn’t change very, very quickly then I know what the outcome will be” – under-pressure Charlton boss Michael Appleton looks to end a winless run going back to 28 November before their League One game with Northampton.

Tuesday 23 January, 9.44pm: Shortly after the Addicks are controversially reduced to 10 men, Louis Appéré fires home in the seventh minute of added time to put Northampton 3-2 up at the Valley.

Tuesday 23 January, 9.46pm: The Cobblers win 3-2.

Tuesday 23 January, 10.15pm: “We can confirm Michael Appleton has left the club with immediate effect after being relieved of his role” – Charlton waste little time in beginning their search for a sixth new manager since March 2021.

Re: Crystal Palace threatening to sack Roy Hodgson (yesterday’s News, Bits and Bobs, full email edition). There might be a cunning plan here. Suppose they did sack him and installed a placeholder manager, just to look after things until we arrive at the business end of the season. Then with, say, four or five weeks of the season left, Palace could reinstate him as manager to do what he does best when he does it best” – John Lawton.

Re: Pete Headland’s reference to the Hoddle Constant of quantum mechanics (yesterday’s Football Daily letters). The Honda Quandary is analogous to being on the back of a horse. Can two people be on the back of a horse? Why, yes, of course. So, by extension, two people can be on the back of a motorcycle. That defines their place relative to the motorcycle. Their place relative to one another is another matter. Are they fore and aft, front and rear, ahead and behind, etc? But would you have been brave enough to call Stan Bowles ‘a bit behind’?” – Ken Muir.

Send any letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s letter o’ the day winner is … John Lawton, who lands a copy of A Culture of Kits, published by Pitch Publishing and out to buy in early February. Visit their football book store here to pre-order a copy.

Uefa was “right” to ban Manchester City from Big Cup in 2020 [later lifted – Football Daily Lawyers], according to chief suit Aleksander Ceferin. “I don’t want to speak about the case in England,” he tooted. “But I trust that the decision of our independent body was correct.”

Afcon managers corner: Chris Hughton has been shown through the Ghana door marked Do One after the Black Stars’ swift and dismal exit caused fans – and hacks – to lose the run of themselves. Ivory Coast have done likewise to Jean-Louis Gasset even with their fate in the balance, while the Gambia coach Tom Saintfiet has also done one and Algeria’s Djamel Belmadi is set to do likewise. Phew!

Mauritania, who hadn’t even led in any of their previous eight Afcon matches, have served up another shock result with a 1-0 win over Algeria that dumped the former champions out of the groups.

Palestine and Syria are through to the Asian Cup knockout stages for the first time, but pointless and goalless India will be heading home after their worst performance at the tournament in 40 years. “Obviously everybody sees what are the missing points: scoring goals, which comes with having good goalscorers and people with confidence in front of the goal,” sighed manager Igor Stimac. Also in the last 16 with wins on Wednesday: Japan and Iraq.

Steven Naismith can breathe a big sigh of relief after Hearts came from 2-0 down at home to Dundee to snatch a Scottish Premiership thriller 3-2, thanks to a late Yutaro Oda winner. “The first-half performance was terrible,” deadpanned Naismith. “We were laboured, slow. At half-time this place was toxic. The demand is high, you can’t turn up and expect it to be good.”

Reading now own a suspended three-point deduction for protesting fans’ recent pitch invasion, but their League One survival hopes have at least been lifted by stunning promotion-chasers Derby 1-0. “This is now the blueprint of our approach for each remaining game,” cheered manager Rubén Sellés.

Paul Hurst is back for a second spell in charge of fellow third-tier strugglers Shrewsbury Town after the departure of Matt Taylor.

Anthony Martial = knacked until April.

And not that they’re a one-man team or anything, but Al-Nassr have cancelled their two-game China tour after Cristiano Ronaldo suffered unspecified-knack, sparking concern over the upcoming meeting with Inter Mi-Messi.

Who doesn’t love a dramatic last-minute winner? Well, Wycombe, who suffered perhaps one of the latest regulation-time heartbreakers in Football League history when Charlie Hughes plundered a 1-0 win for Wigan in the – and you’ll like this – 110th minute! Yep. You see, 10 minutes into the second half, referee Adam Herczeg was the filling in a doorstop sandwich of colliding players, suffering a blow to the noggin that was deemed too severe for him to carry on. But before fourth official Steven Rushden could replace him, a Benny Hill-style search in the stands for a qualified official took place. After 20 minutes a fan was ushered in under the floodlights blinking nervously and tasked with being the emergency official. The game kicked off again and, going by match reports, nothing happened until that stupendously late winner arrived 19 minutes and 50 seconds into 19 minutes of added time. How was Wanderers boss Matt Bloomfield feeling about it? “Disappointed and frustrated,” he understated. “The amount of games we’ve had that have gone so far beyond normal time. It keeps happening. We have to look like we can be there all night and defend those moments … unfortunately it’s gone against us. We have to be better.”

Which international squads are made up of players from the most different leagues? The Knowledge knows – along with loads of other nerdy stuff too.

The “Norwegian Neymar” could be coming to the Premier League, baby, so you’d better be excited, whoops Ben McAleer of Club Brugge’s Antonio Nusa.

It’s taken a fair old while, but Chelsea are finally showing signs of post-Abramovich progress, reports Ed Aarons.

Fulham are determined to create a new chapter in history by duffing up Liverpool and shimmying into a Littlewoods Cup final with Chelsea, writes David Hytner.

And Patson Daka is now the first player to find the net in every Afcon possible: the Under-17, Under-20, Under-23 and senior competition. Calvin Kaumba Chikenge profiles Leicester’s Zambian star.

A lovely pair of shots from April 1997 at Brunton Park as Fulham desperately hold out to claim a 2-1 win against Carlisle United in a meeting between two teams chasing promotion from the Third Division. Both would eventually join champions Wigan in going up.