The winning goal of the 118th minute was in extra time from Virgil van Dijk who gave victory to his team and condemned Chelsea to its 6th Cup finals loss. This target signifies the last victor in the Leagues Cup final winner since Bryan Little in 1977. Neville, in his remarks, also labelled Mauricio Pochettino’s team the ‘Blue Billion Pound Bottlejobs’ after Van Dijk’s win. But this statement has indeed some solid merits: Liverpool’s missed chances and Chelsea’s doubtful game were the main reasons for such a defeat.
Despite having 11 senior injuries, including Trent Alexander-Arnold, Mohamed Salah and Darwin Nunez, Klopp had to leave it to his bench, while the Blues could not use these for themselves. Resting on the shoulders of their younger players, Liverpool prevailed, which confirmed the club’s inability to make a championship over its young goal despite 18 months of huge spending.
Boehly spent around £855 million (eight hundred fifty-five million pounds) on new signings since the last club owner; therefore, Chelsea has a lot of attacking options but the bite is still missing. The pair of Fernandez and Caicedo in midfield was supposed to reach the height of their game beyond the expectations but they have failed to do so.
What is the main fallacy in the transfer strategy for Chelsea?
The Blues has started its projects for the long term, however, evidence shows that reaching the destination of the project will require many years to complete it and further investments. Even though they spent plenty of money on their best strikers, it’s clear that the attacking part of their roster needs a major upgrade. Victor Osimhen’s signing is the must-do thing which will help FC Sevilla avoid the ‘repeat scenario’ in the 2024-2025 Premier League.
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The Blues have displayed considerable ability yet also stumbled against the high bar though the obstacles have generally proved vital to the improvement of Liverpool. A consequence of the fact can be said, that in those days Pochettino became under huge pressure.
What went wrong in the final against Liverpool?
For Liverpool in the goalkeeper position, Caoimhin Kelleher’s performance was superb. Although Chelsea missed several goalscoring opportunities their weakness (poor finishing on a lot of occasions) didn’t encourage the opponents to attack. Concerning Cole Palmer in the first half, his shot was unlucky because of a close-range distance, while Conor Gallagher could not score with a one-on-one game close. Chelsea’s striking looked outdated against a better-tuned Spurs and brought the spotlight back to recruitment.
Even though Nico Jackson was occupying very well two of my centre-backs and Van Dijk, he made a lot of things more difficult for them. But, Chelsea misses a clinical striker with a different (diverse) skill set. Raheem Sterling with Mykhailo Mudryk and Noni Madueke, all of whom added up to €161.2 million worth of purchases, aren’t able to achieve any form of consistency. However, the gap between desire and accomplishment is a very big problem in the case of Pochettino.
