Liverpool’s Carabao Cup glory is a true underdog story after ‘perfect’ final
Liverpool fans revel in their Reds winning the Carabao Cup final against all the odds – a triumph made all the sweeter for Will Ford’s nausea…
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The Carabao difference
The Kids. Was it really about kids. Was Will Ford right to snack down the Neviller or was David Tickner closer to the truth in 16 conclusions?
First the facts. Chelsea did also have a young team on the field. This team was ‘bought’ by choice. And yes, they did spend more than £1B on them (and risking the team’s financial future.) Whereas, Liverpool’s was wrought through injury, mostly.
It’s worth noting that Chelsea starting 11 were 258 combined years and 23.46 average age. Squad numbers added to 192, while Liverpool started with 257 or 23.36 average and shirt numbers of 276. Why shirt numbers? It gives you some idea of where the club sees players fitting into the plans that season. Lower numbers equals more likely to play a role. Heck, some of the players aren’t even counted in ‘the squad’ (McConnell and Danns.)
Chelsea ended with 250 or 22.7 on average, while Liverpool ended on 238 or average of 21.36 and shirt numbers of 404.
So while the starting 11s were similar in age the ending 11s were starkly different. And let’s face it Mudryk and Nkunku would be considered players expected to be regularly playing first team football for Chelsea, heck most pundits were expecting big things from Nkunku.
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Second, the reason. Clearly the difference is how Klopp instils a risk taking mentality in the team. Yes, he has them use a system which allows them to play higher but they still need to trust in their team mates, to press together, to back each other, which sometimes fails but also reaps high rewards when working well. The fact that the ‘kids’ play this way in training, when asked to join the first team squad in training, means they are not overawed nor out of place when called up. They progressed through the age groups doing this. They can drop in and do a job. Not as seamless, not as smooth, but enough to hold off those teams with lesser ambition.
And that seems to sum up the current Chelsea. Thrown together, like a job lot bought at a jumble sale, well perhaps not a ‘sale’ but an expensive auction. Not bought to fit a system, not playing to a cohesive system, not understanding each other, working seamlessly together. Playing for a manager that doesn’t provide the same intensity in them, the hugs, the trust.
The ‘kids’ not only brought back the intensity in extra time but still played relatively cohesively. Meanwhile Chelsea’s changes were about more of the same, a bit faster perhaps, hoping for a break, to use their pace, but no plan. It wasn’t a Chelsea ‘bottle job’, they just haven’t been trained differently. Sure, one player could say, let’s be more aggressively, let’s take more risks, but it needs the ‘village’ working together to pay off. Liverpool were still willing to risk it, to go for it, to trust in system, and the manager trusted them. A lot of pressure but simultaneously no pressure. They had done this before, they play this way week in, week out.
And therein lay the difference.
Paul McDevitt
Read more: 16 Conclusions on Chelsea 0-1 Liverpool: Van Dijk greatness, kids, injuries, underdogs and… Carabao BEER?
…Well that was really a bit embarrassing. A bunch of kids with so little experience that 20 year old Bradley with 5 senior appearances ever was one of the more experienced players we had on the pitch. There was a point when our effectively third choice right back had been forced to move into midfield and was substituted for a 19 year old kid and Chelsea still struggled to lay a finger on us.
I looked at that combined XI article you put together in the morning and found it silly then. It is bordering on ridiculous at this point. The only player in blue who emerged with any credit was Gallagher and amusingly he sounds like he’ll be off in the summer. The Billion pound Frankenstein team that Chelsea have built based on long term value and eight year contracts is slightly worse than a Liverpool 3rd XI team with 9 players under 25 who all came through the Liverpool academy and cost nothing.
That is also the fundamental issue Chelsea have now; they’ve got a team of players on contracts that run to the end of their careers. What is the incentive to do anything? There’s no fear of being sold if they underperform because their contracts are so lucrative that they’ll be paid off in glorious fashion if that happens. Their contracts are also so long that nobody else can afford to pay the contracts off to buy them in the first place and there’s no risk if they underperform. Jordan Ibe used to play for Liverpool and now plays for Ebbsfleet Town. That is the risk you run when you underperform for any other club in European football. If Caceido plays like total dog poop for the next 7 and a half years he might end up on loan at Ebbsfleet but on his handsome Chelsea wage. We have all seen footballers play out their skin for a new contract so at least Chelsea fans can look forward to 2031 when this lot of dross might start to turn up every week.
What is wrong with Chelsea fans? The ones near me spent the entire game berating their own players and demanding the impossible (“SHOOT” when the guy is surrounded by three defenders or “PASS” when he has zero options). If that’s what Stamford Bridge is like no wonder this team looks so toxic. They also took a weird amount of pleasure in watching that horror challenge by Caceido on Gravenberch. I don’t think there was any malice in it but ultimately the dude collected his winners medal on crutches and in a protective boot.
Genuinely how poor is the standard of refereeing in this country when the first VVD goal gets disallowed? Essentially the argument is that Endo blocks off the space but Endo has no responsibility to not stand his ground. Unless we are saying that football is not a contact sport he is entitled to stay where he is. Colwil could’ve gone round him but chose to go shoulder to shoulder and came out second best. The referee and VAR are also making ludicrous predictions about the future path of Colwil’s run to imagine he would definitely have ended up where the ball did. His job was probably to man mark Endo and there’s no certainty that Endo was going to head towards the ball. As a holding midfielder his job (as it was all game) was probably to be prepared on the edge of the box to recycle possession if it came back out. That means there’s a chance Colwil thought Endo was going to go for the ball and so moved towards him but collided with Endo who had never planned to try and be in the thick of it. If Colwil doesn’t run into Endo then there’s no certainty that Colwil continues on to try and attack the ball and you can’t disallow a goal based on your instincts of what you think might’ve happened. It would be different if Endo had blocked off Chilwell who was man marking VVD by the way – then I can totally understanding not giving it. This was a farce and Kavangh watched it so many times because he clearly couldn’t find the reason to disallow. He should’ve had the strength and quality to over rule the VAR but was instead too scared in the moment to know what to do. Having seen John Brooks (The VAR today) referee football matches it’s fairly clear he’s completely incompetent so how these two got the nod for a big occasion in football is really beyond me.
Thankfully the referee team didn’t manage to steal the limelight with their disastrous officiating as the result wasn’t affected. This Liverpool team is literally down to the bare bones. I can’t remember an international break our fans have been willing to come sooner in my lifetime. These kids might just be alright though.
Minty, LFC
Justice for Van Dijk
It almost seems like poetic justice that Van Dijk had to nod it in extra time when he was clearly denied a goal before.
VAR managed to deny Liverpool a straight victory but you have to remember that class is always permanent.
This is one of the sweetest victories we have tasted!
Also, Endo and Mcallister showed who is worth 100mn to Caicedo and Enzo. They were absolutely rubbish.
Now looking forward to trophy 2 – Allez Allez!
Tejas (Upwards and onwards Reds!)
Read more: Klopp and Liverpool granted undue Carabao praise by trio of Sky Sports underdog peddlers
Ford and friends
Oh dear, Will Ford. Will’s whole article stinks of your mate texting his ex…take a beat, compose yourself man!!
The narrative that a starting Liverpool team shorn of six starters that ended with academy prospects should clearly beat one of the most expensive teams ever assembled clearly makes no sense. As nauseating as you are finding Klopp’s farewell (again tell us how you really feel) Liverpool had no right to win that game.
Dan
…Will Ford’s bitter article, that frankly should’ve been published on a Chelsea fanzine rather than a general football site, has increased my enjoyment of today’s result immeasurably.
Thanks lad.
James Outram, Wirral
…Lads, we know you’ve got to sell advertising space. And know you’ll have LFC fans biting like a Rottweiler from a 1980s pub roof. But selling this as 11th placed Chelsea vs Top Of The Table Liverpool isn’t telling the whole story, and you know this.
Without our first team goalkeeper, RB, CB, 87 midfielders, losing another and playing a 20 year old right back as a forward, and our entire front line, bringing on half of our under 21 squad, AND WINNING is ridiculous.
Whether it’s for the clicks or not, I’m front row for the “nauseating Klopp farewell tour”. The premier league will be a worse place without him and you know this, you cheeky chappies.
Si, LFC
…So I came back from the pub, absolutely buzzing my team won another trophy , moving us 2 clear of Man U in the all time most successful English club list.
Clicked onto my favourite footy website (unless I absolutely hate it) and guess what, there was an article – suggesting, as I only really skimmed over it, that just because Chelsea are shit, and are miles behind Liverpool in the league, shouldn’t actually be expected to beat a team of kids and reserve players.
The team that finished (and won) the game for Liverpool had 2 players that could be considered first 11. Two!
Anyway it briefly annoyed me, until I balanced myself with a little smoke, and realised this was basically throwing some red meat to the base. I get it, I will always click on an article if it throws some negativity on, for example, Man City success or a brief glimmer in United fortunes.
Anyhow, I’m buzzing again and whatever, screw everyone else, we’ve won another trophy and what an experience for Clark, Danns, McConnell, Bradley, Quansah etc, so proud of them.
Mark Robbo (LFC) (and Jaydon Danns has won more trophies in 2 games than Everton have in 29 years)
…Wow. So proud of Liverpool today. Will ford tries his best to dampen spirits but no one buys it
Yes. Liverpool were clear underdogs today. Yes, they played youth players in a final.
The team you refer to 25 points ahead of Chelsea didn’t play together today Will.
Danns, Bradley, Clarke, Kelleher, McDonnell. How many starts Will?
So, yes, they were underdogs. And my god people like you Will who complain about the nauseating Klopp good bye tour only make it sweeter.
Sleep well in your United pyjamas, don’t let ten Haag give you nightmares
With thanks
Ade Walker LLB CMI
Thanks, Fordy
Thank you Will Ford for putting into words what I was thinking while watching the match. There was even one comment from I think Carragher about how Arsenal do it corners… hard to be offside from a corner Jamie. This last couple of months is going to be nauseating, time to watch with the sound off.
Andrew Goonerabroad Brown
Perfect final
What a ridiculous game, a perfect cup final! The world needs more deeply chaotic football games. Delighted that Klopp gets a trophy to leave with, delighted for the kids to win one, delighted for van Dijk to put his mark on another big game
Dan, Plastic LFC
Down with this sort of thing
Remember Liverpool fans, no celebrating now, it is only some form of a trophy, but not within the defined category of an acceptable hand clap.
Mel – Dublin, Berlin, Athlone Town, HaHoHe (I have boxer shorts older than those Liverpool subs)
Spare me
I really don’t mind Liverpool winning – England’s Naples needs its succour.
But: Peter Drury (who, by the way, couldn’t have been more pre-scriptedly florid if he’d fell in a vat of Aqua Di Parma)
“ football isn’t just all about money!!!”
Virgil Van Dijk transfer fee – £75 million pounds.
Stop making our like they’re different.
It’s embarrassing.
Lawrence, Chelsea fan (who is worried we have a Spurs manager)
Read more: Super Sunday drowning in Peter Drury’s scripted whimsy and maelstrom of awfulness
Billion quid bottle jobs
A billion quid for a League Cup runner’s up medal. Football was invented in 1992 and, truly, reinvented in 2023. Congrats, Todd.
Ian, LFC Hartford, CT USA
View from the Blues
A few thoughts from the cup final.
Kellaher is exceptional. By far the best no 2 in the league and deserves to be first choice for a ‘big’ club next season. I’d have him at Chelsea in a heartbeat but he’s far too good for an average to poor mid table team.
Chelsea players, of course, should be ashamed of themselves selves. Best chance this group of players will ever have at winning a trophy, considering how depleted Liverpool were.
The thing that stood out the most among the very many things Chelsea are bad at was their inability to keep the ball. No more than 3 passes and they’d loose it. None of the players, particularly the midfield can tackle cleanly (or at all) which exacerbates the ball retention as a clumsy challenge will either give away a foul or the ball back to the opposition. Often Chelsea would win a free kick, but would have lost the ball before the replay showing the foul was over.
Chelsea are known for poor finishing but in extra time it almost felt like they didn’t even want to score and could just wait it out for penalties. F**k knows why because they’d have lost even if the game had.
Gusto played well, along with Gallagher. Palmer was ok. Sterling, Ferandez, Caicedo and Mudryk might as well have not played.
Will CFC (Oh and yes, well done Liverpool)
P.S. Apologies, I should have mentioned Petrovic on the short list of decent Chelsea players. The rest can bog off.
New rules and Newcastle
[Note: The next two paragraphs were completed just as the second half of extra time began in the League Cup Final. I find I don’t regret them.]
If blue cards are the new rule we deserve in the wake of VAR, then new rule we *need would fix Liverpool-Chelsea cup finals. As they went to extra time, only Klopp’s youth-heavy late subs held any interest for me, but it seemed like they’d be doing well to take to – ugh – penalties. I don’t think there’s anything worse than penalties for a neutral. You’ve just watched ninety minutes of stalemate then half an hour of foul-tempered nervous timidity, and in the end it all comes down to what feels like coin tosses.
Evidently, Liverpool and Chelsea cancel each other out, so let’s not do that anymore. Henceforth, when Liverpool and Chelsea meet in a single-leg cup final or semi-, let’s skip regulation time, require the benching three of each side’s top eight healthy start-getters to simulate regulation substitutions, and start with extra time. We get an energetic but tense half an hour of football with teams slightly more error-prone in three positions. That sounds like fun. It’ll probably still end in penalties, but I won’t have wasted so much of my Sunday.
I have to address NUFC’s spanking on Saturday, I suppose. It looked to me like Arsenal completely incapacitated United by getting our back line moving toward the goal, then introducing an unexpected additional pressure – a back-heel, an underlap, what have you. And I mean, that sounds like how you beat a football team, right? But they did it to us over and over, whenever they felt like it. If it had been a baseball game, I’d have suspected Arsenal were stealing our signals. It looked as though Arteta had predicted every single one of Newcastle’s pressure- and passing- triggers and then exploited that knowledge for all it was worth. Arsenal had at least two men straight onto almost every Newcastle player that received a ball. It was abject to watch, though it was lovely to see Joe Willock again. Did anybody else think some of Howe’s late subs felt more like callings-out than mercy-pulling? Looked to me like he was trying to get a reaction.
Chris C, Toon Army DC
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Latest United inquest
Following the 2-1 loss for United against Fulham, I think that realistically sums up United’s season in a nutshell, and secures the fact that United are still in fact a Top 6 team at best.
No Hojiland before the game was a blow, but to play with so much inconsistency in the final third without one player and someone who is only 21 years old, showed United have no to little quality upfront. I mean even in midfield, you would think a midfield of Casemiro, Mainoo and Fernandes would have enough quality to at least get a result? Well no because unfortunately, Fernandes cries more than a high school girl that just got dumped, and well Casemiro couldn’t even win a header against Reed who is half his size, and I am glad he went off after that head clash because he isn’t even half the player he was last year, just looks so unfit.
Oh and as for Ten Haag, it is clear he isn’t a bad manager, but he isn’t a great one either. He is trying to play youngsters with experienced players and I think that is the correct blend & balance you need in a team, but he isn’t get the best from the experienced players AT ALL. I don’t think he has the personality to get the player consistent, and I don’t think the experienced players like Varane, Maguire and Casemiro probably give a toss what he says half the time and tactically I have never seen him change it up at half time or during a game, just stands on the sidelines with his hands in his f*cking pockets the whole game.
5 points to make after this season and the game yesterday:
8 losses in all competitions this season at home after almost going unbeaten for the entirety of last season. Not only worrying, but really really poor and the season isn’t even over yet. This is mostly down to Ten Haag, but also some key players as well.
If Maguire is the best CB at the club, doesn’t that say it all in terms of recruitment? He’s a good professional player and tries his best, but his best is nowhere near good enough for consistent Top 3-4. I would keep him, but for goodness sake sign one of two CB’s who aren’t made of glass, are at a good age, actually know how to defend and is fit. Surely not that hard to do!
Rashford shouldn’t go to the Euro’s the way he has played this season, disgrace of a player at times. His movement is pitiful and he can’t even pass a ball 5 yards sometimes. Oh and if he doesn’t bag even 10 goals this year, I would sell him to PSG now Mbappe is off. Rashford doesn’t care about signing the new contract, but he think he is better than he actually is due to his arrogance so will fit in well at PSG and could probably get £50-60 million for him
Why did United sign Mount? Honestly what has he offered since he arrived, he has clearly just signed for the club for money and fame, took the number 7 shirt and practically just sitting on his ass. How can we you spend £50 million on a English midfielder and not even get an assist out of him?
With the new part ownership in and Ratcliffe seemingly giving a given a little f*ck in how the club should be run, I hope its a case where he or someone working under him goes to the manager and mentions the idea of selling them/listing them out onto the transfer list. This needs to happen with at least 5 different players this summer, no excuses anymore the players can’t be trusted, but I would include the manager on this list as well in binning off in the summer. If United end up losing more than 13 league games this season, does he really deserve a chance for a third season in the job? I don’t think so and not worth putting faith him in, and I don’t see United winning the FA cup this season, so I think he should pack his bags and go back to Ajax.
So yeah, the game yesterday was frustrating, but it could have been a good result for United at 1-1 under the circumstances at the time, and given its been 4 league wins in a row before this game, it wasn’t disastrous but not really surprising either. However lets be clear that this season has easily been the worst one since the Moyes season and has been a disaster, the standards are way too low and that dressing room just seems to lack so much leadership and quality that it simply can’t handle any form of serious pressure.
Rami, Manchester
…I’m an optimist. I always hope that the latest manager will deliver, and I’ve been right. Once.
I hoped, Ten Hag would finally be the one. But optimism makes you temporarily blind. So when he paid £80 odd million for Antony I thought he must be a player.
Then, for some inexplicable reason Ten Hag played a winger with only a left foot on the right wing. Why? Surely a left footed player should be on the right wing so that he can cross the ball from the byline and, hey presto, the striker has a chance of scoring. But no. Antony became the most predictable player in the history of football. But still Ten Hag persisted.
Meanwhile on the other wing he is facilitating Rashford, now the second most predictable player in the world. Get the ball and either, a) try to cut inside (and not bump into Antony) or b) try to dribble past a defender for no apparent reason and then lose the ball.
Now I’m not in any way qualified to manage a football team, which makes it even more ridiculous that I can spot the flaw in this strategy. Perhaps Ten Hag should revisit old videos of United wingers. Coppell and Hill, Best and Morgan/Aston, Kanchelkis, Beckham, etc etc…crossing the ball!!!
Tim McKane
…Honestly, I was sure we’re past these reality checks but I guess it’s another one.
ETH may end up being a fraud, but he’s not the main reason this team looks this terrible. This squad has been abysmal for literal years, but your fanbase kept pretending Bruno and his ilk are legitimate top class players, bigging up dreadful signings and massively overreacting to some extremely underwhelming patches of form. If you’re sitting here bemoaning the loss of players like Luke shaw and casemiro, you’re honestly a lost cause. You’re not on the rise, you’re not even in rebuild mode. This team is rotten through and through and you’ve attempted to skip the “raze everything to the ground” phase, pretending this team has a solid core to build around.
It absolutely doesn’t. Bruno isn’t Kevin, Garnacho isn’t Ronaldo incarnate, and plugging gaps with Eriksen and Amrabat is hilariously feckless. At this point in time, you honestly don’t have a single player worthy of a top four team, and winning five horrible games 1-0 doesn’t change that, it just masks it for a month before you rinse and repeat your crisis talk. There’s no crisis, the horse had bolted and died years ago. Start over. Sort yourselves out. With ETH or without him, you’re at least 4 years and twenty players away from respectable.
All the best.
Tomer, LFC.
…Hi Jon, Bridgwater I was comparing the 3 regimes in a broader sense, American owners with only a financial interest in their clubs and a damaging stewardship (Glazers/H and G) vs American owners who have improved facilities, infrastructure and performance on the pitch as well as increasing revenue (FSG).
You make a good point about certain clubs having financial plot armour, it must be frustrating for supporters lower down the pyramid to hear complaints from certain fanbases, problems are relative.
Ultimately I’m not getting too excited about Ratcliffe I’ve been hurt before, but getting a key member of the City setup in as CEO and a seemingly very highly rated Ashworth in as DOF seems like a good start and it’s nice to at least hear about a focus on football for a change.
Feel free to use this email as proof of my endless naivety when in a year or two’s time Old Trafford is on fire and Ten Haag has used the Infinity Stones to snap patterns of play out of existence.
Mike, Man United
