EFL Cup Final - Chelsea 0-1 (aet) Liverpool - Sunday 25th February, 2024

[Stan]

Deserved win for Liverpool. 

[LFCMike]

6 minutes ago, Inverted said:

There's no other manager in the world who wins that final, in those circumstances.

That's the difference between a historic manager and someone like Poch.

It's fucking incredible how he's thrown on a few kids in a final and won that

[Rick]

I don’t want him to go. Give him a gap year if he needs a rest. 

[Reluctant Striker]

Certainly the most impressive aspect for Liverpool is to win with so many injury problems. Likely to not be the only trophy of Klopp's finale season either.

For Chelsea, their problems appear to have no quick & easy fix. An expensively arranged squad, managed by someone still in search of his 1st trophy with an English club side, despite having a reputation as big as most of his players. And the sum of of all the parts appears to be mid-table, with the ability to pull off a win or draw here & there. It is an ever competitive league, but it's still quite shocking.

[Danny]

Honestly, the money Chelsea have spent, beating Liverpool to Caicedo for big money, the fact half Liverpool’s team is injured snd they brought on 5 academy players and still couldn’t win. A humiliating loss for Chelsea

[LFCMike]

We didn't even get a free kick for this

 

[Dr. Gonzo]

Future looks pretty bright when you can take off senior players for academy players to go into extra time, then hang on and once into extra time they go on look the better side (even though if Chelsea could have been clinical late on in regular time they probably would have stolen a win).

[Mel81x+]

Think at one point I was thinking that Chelsea would score just because they had chances, but Kelleher showed up today. For all the mistakes he makes, he really did do a stunning job. Virg gets the MOTM but for me it was the goalkeeper. 

[Stan]

Klopp is pretty special guiding a team without Salah, Alexander-Arnold, Nunez, Szoboszlai, Alisson, Jota to a league final win. And not even have much experience to replace them with.

 

That or Pochettino is shit. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

19 minutes ago, Stan said:

Klopp is pretty special guiding a team without Salah, Alexander-Arnold, Nunez, Szoboszlai, Alisson, Jota to a league final win. And not even have much experience to replace them with.

 

That or Pochettino is shit. 

Why not both?

[Lucas]

I really like the bloke but Pochettino's reputation is going rapidly downhill and that stigma about him not being able to get his teams over the line only grows.

That was a massive chance for Chelsea to kickstart this new regime and bag a trophy. They had a lot of things fall in their favour to do so, and they've still not managed to find the answer.

There is now a genuine prospect that Chelsea are going to face two years without any kind of European Football.

This is a club that won the Champions League in 2021. A club that had developed a winning mentality to close out finals.

Three years later and here we are, Can't beat a team ravaged by injuries to their best players and forced to field kids.

Ridiculous, bordering on unacceptable given the standard they should adhere to.

[Dan+]

Pochettino's never been able to get sides over the line but you could at least a few years ago have made a case that he would take them somewhere close. I don't even think you can even make that case for him anymore. If he isn't under serious pressure then Chelsea are pretty much done as a top club under this ownership I think.

[Stan]

Chelsea the first side in history to lose 6 domestic cup finals in a row. 

[LFCMike]

I've been quite critical of Kelleher at times this season when he's had his chance, probably a bit harsh on him because of who he's filling in for. But he was outstanding yesterday wasn't he? 

[Danny]

Sky really need to sort out Carragher commentating on Liverpool games. The goal was clearly offside, Colwill clearly had a run on Van Dijk and Endo from an offside position blocks him. Pretty straightforward, second time recently that Carragher has let his bias get the best of him on commentary 

[Danny]

12 hours ago, Lucas said:

I really like the bloke but Pochettino's reputation is going rapidly downhill and that stigma about him not being able to get his teams over the line only grows.

That was a massive chance for Chelsea to kickstart this new regime and bag a trophy. They had a lot of things fall in their favour to do so, and they've still not managed to find the answer.

There is now a genuine prospect that Chelsea are going to face two years without any kind of European Football.

This is a club that won the Champions League in 2021. A club that had developed a winning mentality to close out finals.

Three years later and here we are, Can't beat a team ravaged by injuries to their best players and forced to field kids.

Ridiculous, bordering on unacceptable given the standard they should adhere to.

Do you not think Chelsea losing that killer instinct is down to the ownership and their transfer model rather than Poch?

[Rick]

33 minutes ago, Danny said:

Do you not think Chelsea losing that killer instinct is down to the ownership and their transfer model rather than Poch?

Poch looked a bit mediocre at PSG. That is as much of a ‘tap in’ job as you get and he had Neymar, Messi & Mbappe as his front three. The man is just not a natural winner. 

[Danny]

25 minutes ago, Rick said:

Poch looked a bit mediocre at PSG. That is as much of a ‘tap in’ job as you get and he had Neymar, Messi & Mbappe as his front three. The man is just not a natural winner. 

Mate Neymar, Messi and Mbappe was a terrible front 3. Neither Messi or Neymar wanted/could do any running and Mbappe was too busy moaning at people for passing to Messi than him lol

[Dr. Gonzo]

43 minutes ago, Danny said:

Do you not think Chelsea losing that killer instinct is down to the ownership and their transfer model rather than Poch?

Nah, when people use the argument “lots of managers need time, look at Klopp and look at Pep” it ignores things like Klopp immediately turning our performances around and getting to 2 finals despite the dogshit form Rodgers had us in for half a season & Pep implementing his style at a club and needing to get players that actually fit in with that style.

Poch got to a final, but Chelsea’s performances have been pretty unconvincing all season. There’s no clear improvement of any Chelsea players, it just looks like Gallagher, Gusto, and Palmer are better than their teammates by some distance.

And he couldn’t even build a convincing looking attack with Messi, Mbappe & Neymar.

To me it looks as though a patch at Spurs where he really got the most out of Kane and Son until his tactics got figured out might actually be the peak of his management abilities.

If results were bad but performances were good, I think it would be a different story. You could say he’s building something and Chelsea need to re-learn how to be patient with a manager after decades of short term success.

He’s probably not helped by the club signing players for him and the club seemingly just signing players because they’re highly rated rather than because they’ve been identified as a good fit… but lots of managers have no real say in signings at all in Europe and it’s not as though Chelsea are signing players that are genuinely shite.

For me, he’s someone like Rodgers. He’s good, up to a point. But even then, Rodgers couldn’t even truly fuck up having genuine world class talents in Suarez & Gerrard, until he lost Suarez and put Gerrard in the wrong position for having no legs left. And he managed to do pretty decently at Leicester after his purple patch with us, unlike Poch with his purple patch with Kane.

[Dr. Gonzo]

Just now, Danny said:

Mate Neymar, Messi and Mbappe was a terrible front 3. Neither Messi or Neymar wanted/could do any running and Mbappe was too busy moaning at people for passing to Messi than him lol

Yet the guy who replaced him got more out of that front 3.

[Rick]

3 minutes ago, Danny said:

Mate Neymar, Messi and Mbappe was a terrible front 3. Neither Messi or Neymar wanted/could do any running and Mbappe was too busy moaning at people for passing to Messi than him lol

From the get go, he didn’t have them under control. Weak management that was. Couldn’t inspire them to work together to achieve the top goals. Regardless of their ego’s that goes against him big time. 

[Cicero]

Thought he would've adapted or improved from his time off of football, but he is still the same reactive, conceding, and tactically poor manager that he always was. Was giving him the benefit of the doubt with his history of developing young players, but 8 months in the only one he's "improved" is a technically average Conor Gallagher who he's seemingly built the entire team around. No surprise the best chances came to Gallagher who fluffed them. 

There is a decent squad in this team, maybe missing 2-3 senior/established players and finishers. 

 

[RandoEFC+]

Chelsea should have been able to go for the throat in extra time yesterday and Liverpool should have been the ones hanging on for penalties. Chelsea surrendered possession and territory and tried to hit Liverpool on the break. The risk then is you concede a corner or a wide free kick and then you're at the mercy of the goalmouth scramble.

Poch is unlucky in a sense because Chelsea had their chances and it's on the players for not taking them. Kelleher did well in that one on one against Gallagher but Gallagher still has to score. There was the goalmouth scramble as well where the ball could go anywhere and Kelleher ended up catching it. It could very easily have gone the other way.

But when push came to shove, Chelsea went into their shell and Liverpool continued to play the way they wanted to even with so many inexperienced players on the field. I think the point about Chelsea as a club losing their winning mentality is a fair one but I also think a lot of responsibility lies at the manager's door. Chelsea ultimately had the better and more experienced players on the pitch but it was Liverpool who had the backbone to take the initiative.

[Dr. Gonzo]

2 hours ago, Danny said:

Sky really need to sort out Carragher commentating on Liverpool games. The goal was clearly offside, Colwill clearly had a run on Van Dijk and Endo from an offside position blocks him. Pretty straightforward, second time recently that Carragher has let his bias get the best of him on commentary 

I think only you and the ESPN pundits really agree with that VAR decision. That sort of thing happens all the time, Arsenal even have a set piece tactic where players start in an offside position and they move to interfere with opponents runs.

I’ve only seen goals disallowed for it twice. Both times, this season. Both times either the local rival or competitive rival of a side owned by a country these refs are allowed to moonlight for. But I’m told they’re more inept than corrupt so I’ll take peoples word for it.

Thought it was a disgraceful referee performance all around. Players have been sent off for less than Caicedo - who didn’t even get a card. Gallagher avoiding a yellow is also baffling. Meanwhile a teenager gets booked because Chilwell lashed out at him. I think the ref and VAR are lucky they’re not slated more.

[Danny]

4 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

I think only you and the ESPN pundits really agree with that VAR decision. That sort of thing happens all the time, Arsenal even have a set piece tactic where players start in an offside position and they move to interfere with opponents runs.

I’ve only seen goals disallowed for it twice. Both times, this season. Both times either the local rival or competitive rival of a side owned by a country these refs are allowed to moonlight for. But I’m told they’re more inept than corrupt so I’ll take peoples word for it.

Thought it was a disgraceful referee performance all around. Players have been sent off for less than Caicedo - who didn’t even get a card. Gallagher avoiding a yellow is also baffling. Meanwhile a teenager gets booked because Chilwell lashed out at him. I think the ref and VAR are lucky they’re not slated more.

Then the issue is consistency, but its factually offside