Chelsea suffer huge suspension blow for potential crunch Arsenal match

Chelsea will be without one of their key players for the first leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final in January

Chelsea star Moises Caicedo will be suspended for the first leg of the Blues' Carabao Cup semi-final in January.

Enzo Maresca's side reached the last four on Tuesday night after beating League One leaders Cardiff City 3-1. Alejandro Garnacho scored twice and Pedro Neto also found the back of the net to send the Blues into the last four.

Chelsea will face either Premier League leaders Arsenal or FA Cup holders Crystal Palace in a fixture scheduled for Tuesday, December 23. Semi-final first-leg ties will take place the week commencing January 12, with second-leg matches from February 2.

But if Maresca's men are to book their ticket in March's final at Wembley Stadium, they will have to do so without key midfielder Caicedo in the first leg. The Ecuadorian was given a yellow card in the 45th minute against Cardiff from referee Tony Harrington for sarcastically applauding his decision to award Cardiff a free-kick for a Chelsea foul.

Caicedo's booking in Wales was his second in the Carabao Cup this season, following a yellow card he received for arguing in the fourth minute of added time in the previous round at Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Players who reach the semi-finals with one yellow card from a previous round have them wiped at that point.

However, players who have already received a suspension by the end of their quarter-final match must still serve that suspension. While the risk of future suspensions is erased, existing ones are not.

Since Caicedo was shown his second yellow card during the quarter-finals and before Chelsea had advanced to the semi-finals, he still faces a one-match ban.

With the Blues facing a busy fixture list over the next few months, Maresca will need to heavily rely on his squad as he did against Cardiff.

Speaking post-match, he said: "I just said that these are the kind of games that I fall in love even more with the players, because it's very, very easy. You cannot imagine how easy it is to slip, to slide, because they are tricky games.

"Every season, there are teams that they lost against League Two or League One teams. You need to pay attention, you need to do the right things.

"Cardiff is very well organised, off the ball they were very intense, and we expect exactly the game that we face, knowing that Ty [George] is not playing a lot, [Marc] Guiu is not playing a lot, Facu [Buonanotte] is not playing a lot.

"So we expect some difficulty in the first half, and then in the second half, with the change, we were quite better."