League Cup Final Post - Match Thread

[Vienna_70]

What character this team has, Chelsea had 6 days off before the game, we had an away game in europe, and played nearly half an hour a man down, and came back from 2-1 to win, then today 4 of our best players subbed, and we still stuck at it to win a shoot out.

My wife thinks I'm weird, but I love penalty shoot outs, if you lose, well its disappointing, but I can cope (luckily I support a team that doesn't really lose them), but when you win, its the best way to win. To win a cup final that way is even better, that's three we've won at wembley now ;-)

Chelsea played Malmö on Thursday.

 

[BLUE THUNDER]

great win but at what cost. If Ferna and Laporte are out for "weeks" as Pep says, we seriously jeopardise our chances in the other 3 competitions, especially the league. The more games you ask them to play the higher probability they get injured, and both these injuries were non contact injuries.

 

[Vienna_70]

Not that this matters in the slightest but I’m curious as to how Chelsea got to take the first penalty and shoot at there end. Did I miss something ?! I seen they won the toss but i thought they just got first choice not both.

Maybe we chose to go second.

 

[cleavers]

Chelsea played Malmö on Thursday.

Yeah its been covered earlier.

 

[mancity2012_eamo]

great win but at what cost. If Ferna and Laporte are out for "weeks" as Pep says, we seriously jeopardise our chances in the other 3 competitions, especially the league. The more games you ask them to play the higher probability they get injured, and both these injuries were non contact injuries.

That's the way I feel too. Great to win and delighted for the confidence that will give Raheem.
But I think these injuries are more wear and tear than impact.
Fern in particular has played too much and there were games where we should have trusted our squad without him.

I'm hoping that Pep will start to trust Foden and use him more for KDB and Dave, otherwise I can see the same happening with them.
Neither are up to full speed at a time when we need a team fully up to speed for every game.

 

[roj]

Thankful Chelsea never got their Willy on. And Ederson got a penalty shootout win in his bag (forgive my brain if he's done it for us before). Happy days.

 

[BluessinceHydeRoad]

I'm not quite sure what I was watching on the tele yesterday because it quite clearly wasn't the Carabao cup final reported in today's papers. Most of the papers report a game in which Sarri's Chelsea first nullified a City team "well below their best" before looking more and more dangerous as the game wore on so that they should have won, only to lose because of the destructive effects of a row between goalkeeper, manager and Uncle Tom Cobbly.

My first observation is that yesterday was not Sarri's Chelsea or anything like it. It was much more like Mourinho's or Conte's Chelsea. Sarri had abandoned his "principles" and Chelsea had reverted to type, getting eleven men behind the ball so they didn'e concede. Back to the future! Thus was the first half played almost entirely in Chelsea's half with City trying patiently to move eleven Chelsea players around. It was not quite the anti football of Mourinho's heyday, not quite. Chelsea were playing on the break we are to believe, but they never actually broke. They had a plan not to ship six again, a plan not to lose but they never seemed to understand that it was a cup final and you needed a plan to win not simply not to lose.

In the second half Chelsea were the more dangerous team - we are told - with their quick breaks carrying real menace. Despite the fact that they relied on VAR to confirm a decision the replay simply didn't support to avoid losing, their menacing counters were very few and far between and they didn't result in a single attempt which was on target. They did produce one very good chance, but if your plan is likely to produce only one real chance it is no good moaning if you can't take it! Similarly, the affair between 'keeper and manager was a shambles entirely of Chelsea's own making. Willy may well have done better in the shoot out but we'll never know and it's not worth our bothering about - or Chelsea's since they'd rather make a very public spectacle of themselves than get the players the manager wanted on the pitch. What we do know is that Arrizalabaga was still off balance in his ludicrous attempt to put Sergio off when Sergio rolled it under his hand. Nearly a cock up from Sergio, but a real cock up from the 'keeper! This goes along with Mr Jorginho's ludicrously exaggerated leap and arrogant trickle of the penalty to the 'keeper's left. Sorry, you'll have to do better than that to trick Eddie! And then Luis whacked his against the post. Luis can take a good penalty - but he can also put them in orbit...or against the post. So, planning not to lose, having so few breaks you don't have a single shot on target is not going to win a cup final, nor is playing for penalties and then not being good enough in the shoot out. City were patient and backed themselves to be able to win in any one of the ways possible.

 

[BlueAnorak]

Not that this matters in the slightest but I’m curious as to how Chelsea got to take the first penalty and shoot at there end. Did I miss something ?! I seen they won the toss but i thought they just got first choice not both.

Two coin tosses. The first to choose ends, the second to decide who takes the first penalty. We lost both but won the shootout.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penalty_shoot-out_(association_football)

 

[mancity2012_eamo]

I'm not quite sure what I was watching on the tele yesterday because it quite clearly wasn't the Carabao cup final reported in today's papers. Most of the papers report a game in which Sarri's Chelsea first nullified a City team "well below their best" before looking more and more dangerous as the game wore on so that they should have won, only to lose because of the destructive effects of a row between goalkeeper, manager and Uncle Tom Cobbly.

My first observation is that yesterday was not Sarri's Chelsea or anything like it. It was much more like Mourinho's or Conte's Chelsea. Sarri had abandoned his "principles" and Chelsea had reverted to type, getting eleven men behind the ball so they didn'e concede. Back to the future! Thus was the first half played almost entirely in Chelsea's half with City trying patiently to move eleven Chelsea players around. It was not quite the anti football of Mourinho's heyday, not quite. Chelsea were playing on the break we are to believe, but they never actually broke. They had a plan not to ship six again, a plan not to lose but they never seemed to understand that it was a cup final and you needed a plan to win not simply not to lose.

In the second half Chelsea were the more dangerous team - we are told - with their quick breaks carrying real menace. Despite the fact that they relied on VAR to confirm a decision the replay simply didn't support to avoid losing, their menacing counters were very few and far between and they didn't result in a single attempt which was on target. They did produce one very good chance, but if your plan is likely to produce only one real chance it is no good moaning if you can't take it! Similarly, the affair between 'keeper and manager was a shambles entirely of Chelsea's own making. Willy may well have done better in the shoot out but we'll never know and it's not worth our bothering about - or Chelsea's since they'd rather make a very public spectacle of themselves than get the players the manager wanted on the pitch. What we do know is that Arrizalabaga was still off balance in his ludicrous attempt to put Sergio off when Sergio rolled it under his hand. Nearly a cock up from Sergio, but a real cock up from the 'keeper! This goes along with Mr Jorginho's ludicrously exaggerated leap and arrogant trickle of the penalty to the 'keeper's left. Sorry, you'll have to do better than that to trick Eddie! And then Luis whacked his against the post. Luis can take a good penalty - but he can also put them in orbit...or against the post. So, planning not to lose, having so few breaks you don't have a single shot on target is not going to win a cup final, nor is playing for penalties and then not being good enough in the shoot out. City were patient and backed themselves to be able to win in any one of the ways possible.

Sounds accurate enough to me.
Sarri confirmed that they played perfectly to his plan, and it looked to be working, so whether that is abandoning principles or not, it was definitely his team.
They parked the bus.
We were better first half.
They were better second half. Hazard on the break looked about as much offside as Kun for the disallowed goal.
TBH they looked more likely, in my mind when Fern, Kev and Silva were all off, as we had nothing left.
Somehow though we managed to wrestle the initiative away from them in the extra time though.

The Kepa/Sarri episode at the end was a shambles. I actually felt sorry for Sarri.
We held our composure.
At least Kepa got his comeuppance.

 

[Cheer Up Peter Reid]

Maybe the Kepa/Sarri thing was contrived to waste even more time. Chelsea got exactly what they deserved yesterday for their negative tactics.