It’s never nice losing to Chelsea, particularly not in a semi-final. Much as everyone will now be quick to say “ah well, nobody cares about the League Cup anyway”, it would have been great to win it, particularly at the expense of our rivals from West London. Sadly it wasn’t to be, but there are many positives that can be taken from the game.
The first of these positives is Simon Mignolet. As I’ve been saying for much of the season, he makes up for the errors he makes with the excellent saves he pulls off. He was at his finest in yesterday’s match, an exquisite save with the feet from a deflected Costa shot being the highlight. He also looked a lot more confident in claiming the ball than he has been for much of the season; he plucked multiple crosses out of the air, and his commanding cries to his defenders could be heard clearly. Although he won’t be replacing Thibaut Courtois as Belgium first choice any time soon – he picked up man of the match in both legs of the tie – he is at least demonstrating to his critics that he is far from the root of our problems, and thus not a priority for replacement.
Source: liverpoolfc.com
Another good sign was the continued excellent form of Philippe Coutinho. He has a huge amount of talent, and it was on show in this match. His clever twists and turns as well as his deft touches allowed him to glide seamlessly past Chelsea players on a number of occasions – he even worked his way through on goal once, only to be denied by an excellent Courtois stop. He is arguably the best player in our team – although strong arguments could be made for Sterling and Coutinho – and if he can keep up this run of form then our push for the top four will be helped significantly.
The youth of the team is also very encouraging. Nobody would argue the fact that we gave Chelsea a proper run for their money; we were all over them in the home leg, and took them to extra time at Stamford Bridge. For an inexperienced, youthful side this is no mean feat. If they are able to give potentially the best team in England such a good contest now, where will they be in three years time? If we can keep this exceptionally talented bunch of players together, Liverpool will surely be back up with Europe’s elite before too long. Can, Sterling, Coutinho, Sturridge, Markovic, Ibe and Henderson are all under the age of 24; to say the least, this has the look of a side that could turn out to be formidable.
Of course, it isn’t all positive: we did, after all, get knocked out. The only real downside to our performance was the inability to find the net, and to be honest I’m not too concerned by this failure. Firstly, Thibaut Courtois is an exceptional goalkeeper. Nobody would find it easy to score against him. Secondly,we were missing our main striker: once Sturridge returns, the excellent chances we are creating currently will start getting rounded off. Is it frustrating that Balotelli has still proved unable to step up in Sturridge’s absence? Of course. Ultimately, however, Sturridge is one of the best strikers in the league; we can’t expect to have a back-up who can match his standard. The blame can’t be placed entirely on Balotelli either – Rodgers could be handling him better. Using him as a 70th minute substitute piles immense pressure on him to score, particularly after Rodgers publicly criticised him prior to the match. It is also true that Balotelli is better in a two than as a lone striker; hopefully he is given a chance to play with Sturridge when he returns from injury.
Overall, although losing to Chelsea is devastating, I am choosing to take the positives from what was ultimately a very good performance. Although we may need to be patient with our young squad, I am confident that we will be able to exact our revenge on Chelsea in full before long –here’s hoping that next time we face up to them in a semi-final there will be more on the line than the Capital One Cup.
James Martin
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