Virgil van Dijk completed a superb captain’s performance with a goal that seemed it would never come to get the Klopp Farewell Trophy Tour up and running. All the conclusions you could ever need from the Carabao Cup final are right here…
1. The list of players absent for Liverpool in this cup final made for stark reading. Once it became clear neither Mo Salah nor Darwin Nunez would be involved, they joined a list of absentees including but not limited to Alisson, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Dominik Szoboszlai, Curtis Jones, Thiago, Joel Matip and Diogo Jota.
More striking even than that list of names that didn’t feature in this first of potentially four farewell trophies for Jurgen Klopp, though, is the list of those that did. Conor Bradley and the comparative veteran Harvey Elliott started the game. Bobby Clark, James McConnell, Jaden Danns and Jarell Quansah all finished it. When Ryan Gravenberch was forced off injured in the first half, Bradley was forced into a right-wing position and Kostas Tsimikas and at a push Quansah were left as the only senior outfield players left in reserve at all.
In midweek, Jurgen Klopp compared a comeback win over Luton Town to the Champions League semi-final fightback against Barcelona. It’s a nice bit of distinctly Kloppian hyperbole, but you could see what he meant. In terms of how proud he was of a specific group of players, it resonated on that kind of level. Which must therefore put this victory on a par with anything he has achieved in his storied reign at Anfield. A victory not quite against the odds, but certainly one that required significant obstacles be overcome.
2. And yet, the Sky Sports’ commentary team continued unquestioned acceptance and gradual succumbing to a Jamie Carragher-inspired reverse-jinx narrative of the Reds as plucky little underdogs doing something wildly unexpected never truly felt like the right fit.
That is in large part a credit to the work of Klopp, his few remaining senior players – most notably Caoimhin Kelleher and an imperiously match-winning Virgil van Dijk – as well as the unflustered ease with which those youngsters slotted in to Liverpool’s team on a big stage.
But it is also inevitably a shocking indictment on Chelsea, and unavoidably their manager. Describing the 11th best team in England as clear favourites against even an injury-hit side 25 points – one per game, ffs – better than them was always a bit much. But what this certainly was in the circumstances was an unexpectedly decent chance to win a first trophy under the new manager, a first trophy for a lot of new players, and a chance to kickstart the new regime and salvage something truly tangible from a difficult season. When it came to it, they couldn’t do so.
3. This was a(nother) final of fine margins between these two. Chelsea will be doing a great deal of rueing in the days and weeks ahead, but could easily have won the game in normal time while doing very little different at all. Criticism of their 90-minute performance has to be in the context of acknowledging how different it might have been had Kelleher been fractionally less inspired or Conor Gallagher a smidgeon more clinical.
What cannot pass without comment, though, is how poor Chelsea were in extra-time. They shrunk away alarmingly in added time having dominated the closing stages of the 90 minutes as opportunity knocked.
4. And yet those extra-time struggles also represented an exaggerated and extreme example of Chelsea’s wider play. They started poorly upon each and every resumption. They were wild and woolly in the opening 10 minutes of each half of normal time before settling down. Perhaps in extra-time, they just didn’t have that settling time they needed. Either way, it’s a bad look for a manager in Mauricio Pochettino who will always face questions – fair or otherwise – about whether he has quite what it takes at the very highest level at the very gravest moments until he decisively puts those questions to bed. He’s only added to their volume and intensity here.
He certainly couldn’t find the words to inspire his men – even against Liverpool’s boys – in extra-time. Having lost anyway, Pochettino may now wish he’d at least been up against a full-strength Liverpool team where defeat would have been easier to take and pose fewer awkward questions than this one will. They may never have been the overwhelming favourites some of the coverage suggested, but they had a greater chance than might have been expected a few weeks ago to turn this into the first potential domino in a new era of success.
5. “The team felt maybe the penalties would be good for us.” There’s something to be said for that level of stark post-match honesty from a manager, and any criticism should be tempered by the fact it’s always worse when they hide behind platitudes and obvious falsehoods.
On the other hand, that is a truly startling admission from Mauricio Pochettino, and one that may end up as his Chelsea epitaph. Even if we ignore Chelsea’s recent penalty shootout record in finals specifically against Liverpool, that is a staggering self-own for a team boasting a billion pounds of investment taking on a side finishing the match with a side containing actual children and given the way normal time had ended with all the momentum seemingly with the Blues.
To reiterate: that Chelsea were never overwhelming favourites for this game at any stage – even in their own minds – is to Liverpool’s huge credit, but also a damning indictment on just how ruinously fast and far a club that two years ago was lifting the Champions League trophy has fallen. Chelsea really should be so much better than this. Liverpool beating them with kids absolutely should be an against-the-odds underdog occurrence. But it absolutely is not.
6. Chelsea really didn’t start well at all. Levi Colwill in particular was guilty of trying to play his way out and getting into unnecessary tangles on more than one occasion as Liverpool settled much the better. But the first clear chance of the game went to Pochettino’s men, and it was only the first of multiple decisive interventions from Kelleher that kept the game goalless.
Raheem Sterling made a bit of a mess of the initial chance, but it fell to Cole Palmer who looked sure to sweep the ball home only for a strong arm from Liverpool’s back-up keeper to keep the game goalless. It was the most immediately striking of his nine saves, and there is little higher praise for a goalkeeper than to note his side didn’t miss Alisson for a second. Van Dijk described Kelleher as world-class after the match. A bold claim, but there can be little quibbling with that assessment of this particular performance. Immense.
7. Despite that chance, it was still Liverpool looking the more composed and settled before the first of two major first-half controversies shifted the momentum. Jurgen Klopp was furious with Moises Caicedo’s foul on Gravenberch, and it was easy to see why it vexed him so. It was, by any measure, a bad one. And left Liverpool’s already depleted midfield down another senior pro at a time when this is particularly unhelpful.
But it was probably only a yellow-card offence. Caicedo was lucky to escape sanction at all, but Klopp’s apparent ire at the offence being missed was misplaced; an advantage was played which ended when Cody Gakpo was forcefully yet fairly relieved of possession soon after.
Klopp’s more general annoyance was easy to get, though. It’s always immensely frustrating to see foul play effectively rewarded as it was here. There is no denying the net outcome of Caicedo’s – let’s charitably say – clumsiness was to increase Chelsea’s chances and lessen Liverpool’s. And even Liverpool prevailing today doesn’t entirely solve it, because Liverpool are now without another key player for who knows how long at the worst possible time given the prizes still potentially on offer in the remaining dates on the Klopp Farewell Tour.
8. Liverpool were forced into a significant reorganisation as Gravenberch departed on a stretcher. Looking at that youthful bench, Klopp understandably settled upon the utility man’s utility man in Joe Gomez. Whatever this season ends up bringing for the Reds, Gomez’s role in it all will almost certainly be given less prominence than it deserves for making any of it possible. Without his ability to fill holes wherever and whenever they pop up in the Liverpool backline they simply wouldn’t retain even theoretical hopes of coming out the other side of it all with four trophies to show for it.
But in turning to Gomez here, Klopp was forced to reorganise every area of the pitch. Gomez went to right-back, Bradley to right-wing, and Harvey Elliott moved across the field and back a bit to fill Gravenberch’s left midfield berth. It’s no surprise it took some time for all those forced alterations to gel.
9. As Liverpool tried to relocate their sense of balance, one wondered whether the extent of the reshuffle meant Klopp might have been better off going all in and accepting that the players he now had on the pitch required a shift in formation as well. It would arguably have been an even bigger jolt for the team, but with Gomez joining Konate, Van Dijk, Robertson and Bradley on the pitch it wasn’t hard to see a pretty natural 3-4-3 emerging there that would have had more round pegs in round holes than what Liverpool ended up with.
Neither choice was ideal, though, and it was while Liverpool found themselves adjusting to this new reality that Chelsea thought they’d taken the lead. Technically, we would have to say Liverpool’s offside trap worked to leave Nicolas Jackson half a knee offside when running clear to tee up Sterling but it was far too close for comfort.
10. Chelsea’s second clear chance of this period came when Palmer was guilty of lacking the necessary striker’s instinct to properly sniff out the opportunity to pounce on the ball six yards from goal. This allowed Robertson to get across and make a timely and necessary intervention. It’s one he probably wouldn’t have made had he been at left wing-back rather than still at left-back, and was probably in and of itself enough to justify Klopp’s decision to stick with his favoured formation and rejig the personnel slightly awkwardly rather than the alternative. Or maybe a third centre-back would have prevented Robertson having to scamper all the way across from the left flank altogether, who knows.
What was clear, though, was that Liverpool were being stretched consistently for the first time and very much hanging on for half-time.
11. And yet Liverpool so nearly took the lead just before the break. Almost all their best attacking work in the first half especially came via Luis Diaz on the left and it was one such break that ended with a Robertson cross being headed against the post by Gakpo, who would eventually miss out on completing the assignment of scoring in every round. He couldn’t have come much closer, though, doing superbly well to steer the ball towards the far post with any kind of power after the ball came across just behind him.
12. We should all really be grateful for Liverpool’s eventual winner because it means the controversy over Van Dijk’s first, disallowed goal becomes no more than a footnote. But this is still 16 Conclusions and we still need to include the footnotes. It was certainly an unusual one, and a decision that makes any quest for consistency in the outcome of such reviews all but impossible to achieve. How one decides at which point a player doing what Endo did has interfered with a player who would or would not have otherwise been able to engage in the play is unavoidably subjective. This one probably just about makes sense, but if it goes against you and you lose it’s going to be an absolute p*ss-boiler. Had it been the man marking Van Dijk directly who was impeded, it would be far easier to accept and also set a precedent that is less vexatious to future examples.
We give it a week at best before a goal is awarded and which is subsequently subjected to extensive Twitter-based retrial where a block by an offside player is spotted and questions asked darkly as to what was different this time. There’s even a reasonable chance that whoever does this might have half a point as well, given the subjectivity inherent to it all.
But one thing we must state here is that the issue was not – as at least one co-commentator and one former ref with a broadsheet gig seemed to think – with the block itself. “Arsenal block at every set-piece” was Jamie Carragher’s high-pitched complaint, while Keith Hackett noted that Endo is under no obligation to cede his territory to another player. These would be relevant observations had a foul been given against Endo. But that’s not what happened. The issue isn’t that he blocked Colwill’s run; it’s that he blocked Colwill’s run – and thus interfered with play – from an offside position.
Now that’s a decision you can still agree or disagree with, but those are the facts of this particular case and are what any argument has to be based on.
13. While the focus will understandably be on Liverpool’s myriad injuries and the youngsters they were forced to deploy so successfully, there is a strong case that the most significant departure of the entire afternoon occurred early in extra-time when Conor Gallagher limped disconsolately from the field . Whether it was cramp or something more, with his exit Chelsea lost their most dynamic runner and Liverpool’s life for the remainder of the afternoon became far, far easier.
He twice could have won the game for Chelsea having made great, late and dare we say it Lampardian runs into the penalty area. He flicked one effort against the post and was then denied by the second standout of Kelleher’s nine saves. It was, if anything, even better than the one to deny Palmer in the first half, coming off his line smartly to give Gallagher almost nowhere left to go when he looked back up to make his decision on where to place his shot. It wouldn’t quite be correct to say there would have been no way back for Liverpool had that chance been taken, but it came at a time when the wind appeared to be blowing Chelsea’s way and time was running out. A huge moment.
14. We still haven’t worked out precisely how Chelsea failed to score in injury time at the end of normal time when the ball pinballed around the Liverpool six-yard box for what felt like several decades before finding its way into Kelleher’s hands. At this point it appeared reasonable to assume that quite simply no goal could ever be scored again in a cup final between Liverpool and Chelsea. It was going to go to penalties, a Liverpool child was going to score the winning spot-kick, and Peter Drury’s commentary on this event was going to be absolutely harrowing. There was absolutely nothing to be done to prevent this.
15. Apart from Virgil van Dijk. He was going to prevent this. Having been denied a match-winning goal once, he was not to be denied a second time. Having thought he’d scored after an hour, he did so with another perfectly placed header after almost two to cap an outstanding captain’s performance at the heart of a team shorn of so much of its experience. The numbers alone were impressive enough – as well as his goal, van Dijk contributed three tackles, two interceptions, seven clearances, two shots blocked, two ankey passes, a match-high 101 passes at an accuracy above 91 per cent and a partridge in a pear tree. But this was still more than that. Liverpool were able to ride out the loss of all those other wonderful players, but it’s hard to imagine how they would have done so with Van Dijk. The best Liverpool captain’s performance in a final since Steven Gerrard? We’re open to suggestions, but can’t think of one off the top of our head.
16. Wait, there’s a Carabao BEER now? What fresh cursed hell is this?
