Liverpool were the better side on balance as Andoni Iraola sent out a heavily rotated, youthful side against a Chelsea group that had more first team regulars in it. Yet in spite of their generally solid play, Wednesday night’s League Cup tie saw the two sides locked level at 1-1 as the referee blew his whistle for full time and with it sent the game to penalties.
That can feel an unfair way to end a match. A coin flip. A game of chance or luck with no real connection to everything that came before.
In the end on Wednesday, though, it got the game to the right result—with the Reds winning the shootout 6-5 and booking a place in the quarter-finals of the League Cup.
“In the end in the cup competitions what matters is that you are in the next round,” Iraola said after everything was said and done. “It was lucky for us finishing the right side of the penalty shootout but I’m pleased the players have made a very big effort today and that we get the reward of being in the quarter-final.
“We need to feel what we’re feeling now, what the players are feeling now. They’re feeling the support from the stands and I think when we are all together, we create a better atmosphere. Even when we were losing, there was a feel of, come on let’s go, and now it’s the third game at home where we finish with good feelings and we have another big one on Sunday.”
That big one on Sunday will have been marked down by many as one of the games of the season in the Premier League as Arsenal visit Anfield to take on a Liverpool side that wants to show that last season’s stumbling results and uninspired performances weren’t the new norm and that Arsenal haven’t replaced them as Manchester City’s main challengers.
Meanwhile in the League Cup, while that competition won’t be returning until the week of December 14th when the quarter-finals kick off, when it does Liverpool know that they will be facing off at Anfield against Iraola’s former side Bournemouth, who the Reds beats 1-0 away in the league back on September 20th.
“Honestly, I was talking before the draw and I said the only team I don’t want is Bournemouth,” Iraola added. “For me, it’s special. They know me so well, they are playing very good lately, they’re in a good moment. But it is what it is. We haven’t been lucky with the draws, we have played Spurs and Chelsea and now Bournemouth.
“That is going to be obviously special for me, but we have to earn the right to be in the semi-finals and I hope we can do it here at home again.”
