Mauricio Pochettino admits Chelsea wanted penalties against Liverpool’s youthful side

Mauricio Pochettino says his ‘tired’ Chelsea side thought it would be ‘good’ to push for penalties in the Carabao Cup final.

With an extremely long injury list, eventual champions Liverpool ended the game with a number of youthful players on the pitch.

But despite Chelsea piling the pressure on the Reds starlets as normal time case to a close, the momentum suddenly swung in Jurgen Klopp’s side favour as extra time began.

Soon enough, Liverpool finally broke the deadlock.

Virgil van Dijk – who had had a goal controversially ruled out by VAR earlier in the game – scored in the 118th minute, with the 1-0 scoreline being enough to see them lift the trophy for a tenth time in their history.

Klopp’s kids, as Gary Neville referred to them as on Sky Sports’ coverage of the game, saw the game out, with the west Londoners unable to mount a comeback.

But when asked why Chelsea faded in extra time, manager Pochettino suggested that he and his players felt it’d be best to see it out and go for penalties instead.

“The players started to lose their energy,” he said. “[Ben Chilwell] Chilly felt really, really tired. [Conor] Gallagher, after five minutes, we needed to change.

“The team felt maybe penalties would be good for us. The effort was massive.”

Before normal time came to a close, Klopp made a triple change.

18-year-old Jayden Danns, 19-year-old James McConnell and 21-year-old Jarell Quansah were all brought on the pitch – meaning Chelsea faced three very inexperienced stars in extra time.

Harvey Elliott and Conor Bradley, both 20 years old, started the game.

Meanwhile, Ryan Gravenberch, aged 21, was stretchered off in the first half, whilst 19-year-old Bobby Clark came on in the 72nd minute.

Despite Chelsea themselves not boasting the oldest team, plenty of Liverpool’s players left on the field at the end of the game were considerably more inexperienced than their Blues counterparts.

Pochettino was visibly frustrated both when Liverpool scored and when speaking to the media after the game.

Chelsea have now set a new record for most domestic cup finals lost in a row, being defeated in six consecutive FA Cup and Carabao Cup finals in a run stretching back to 2019.