lIt must be very confusing right now. If you are a Chelsea executive. You've spent a billion dollars buying kids and been ridiculed for it and then you go and loses 1-0 in the Carabao Cup final to a lot of Liverpool kids and somehow everyone praises them for it.
However, even at the end of extra time, when Liverpool appeared to have raided the club's nursery in search of bodies to throw into the fray, Chelsea's field eleven were a combined 16 years younger than Jurgen's. Klopp's. However, it was Liverpool who were praised for believing in youth, while Chelsea were praised. ridiculed as bottlers who had wasted a great opportunity. But that's the difference between the demand and what could loosely be described as the plan. Klopp was rightly praised for his faith in his young players (19-year-old midfielder James McConnell in particular stood out for his presence and composure on the ball), but he only used them due to injuries.
Klopp did not want to have to resort to three teenagers but, having accepted that it was essential, he accepted the situation and put them on even before 90 minutes. If a key element of management is a confidence trick, what better way to boost the self-confidence of those players than trusting them throughout the extra time and more? Klopp turned the emergency into a virtue. It would have been very easy to use them reluctantly, to show that they were being provoked just because others were exhausted, but instead he made the most of their energy and the result was that the flow of the game, which had been in Chelsea's favor against In the end After 90 minutes, he turned towards Liverpool.
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It is reasonable then to ask why, when Chelsea's legs went out in extra time, Mauricio Pochettino had no option to rely on. With the right to make six changes, he only made four. And that's perhaps the difference between a stable team and a youth system put together over a decade that has a sense of common purpose so that, even with 11 injuries, it has a clear direction of travel, and whatever it is what Chelsea have done in the last two years, spanking academy products leaving an unequal pool of inexperienced talent.
There remains confusion as to what exactly this Chelsea project is. Even with all of Liverpool's injuries, it was surprising to hear so many people suggesting before kick-off that Chelsea were the favourites. Memories of what they were before the Todd Boehly/Clearlake acquisition may linger, the realization of how chaotic their spending may not have fully sunk in; and Chelsea, under Roman Abramovich, it is true, somehow prospered despite the perpetual intrigue and turmoil, as if they were a football version of the Borgias, but this is a team that started the day 10 places behind and 25 points behind Liverpool in the standings. first division table.
It's also true that the underlying numbers suggest that Chelsea are not as bad as their league position would imply, but there comes a point when the real numbers are just numbers. The reason why Chelsea scores fewer goals than xG would suggest shouldthe reason why concede more than xG would suggest they shouldis that their forwards waste in the opposition's box and their defenders make mistakes in theirs, but that is natural for young players, who lack the experience to make the right decision and perhaps even more so when they lack more established figures from whom learn.
The age profile of the two XIs on the field at the end is instructive. All Chelsea players were between 20 and 26 years old; eight of them between 21 and 24 years old. Liverpool It still had a 31-year-old and a 32-year-old, plus two 27-year-olds and a 26-year-old to provide a structure, tactically and emotionally, within which the three teenagers could thrive. Perhaps Thiago Silva was supposed to be the leader like Virgil van Dijk has been, but that's a big ask for a 39-year-old who understandably needs protection from players running straight at him.
But perhaps what Liverpool had above all else was a story, a narrative and a wave of emotion that they could harness, and that is something that must be earned over time; You can't just buy it. It may be that the emotional energy of Klopp's farewell tour cannot be sustained for another three months and that all the injuries (Ryan Gravenberch and Wataru Endō left Wembley on crutches to add all pre-existing problems – eventually put intolerable pressure on the team. But for now Liverpool have momentum. Klopp has one trophy in his final season with the possibility of three more. There is a sense of a club moving forward united behind a revered coach.
For Chelseasuch harmony, such a sense of purpose, seems a world away.
