• May 15, 2022
• Olaoluwa Nwobodo

Chelsea has now played Liverpool in two domestic cup finals this season. In these finals, they have played a total of 240 minutes and held them to zero goals. Chelsea has also now lost two finals to Liverpool on penalties, and while it’s easy to be negative, it’s also extremely important to give credit to the players that rose to the occasion in two finals and didn’t bulk. Penalties are a coin toss at the end of the day, and there’s hardly ever anything to learn from the penalty shootout.

Goalkeeper: Mendy of the Match (MOTM)

Edouard Mendy was emphatic in everything he did against Liverpool. He did not complicate his passing. His distribution was superb, especially his long passing. His shot-stopping was, as usual, top of the line. He was comfortably Chelsea’s best player on the night. Mendy kept the Blues in the shootout by stopping Sadio Mane’s penalty. Man of the match, Mendy was.

Defenders: Busy and resilient bees

Chelsea’s defenders were the busiest group of people on the pitch. Liverpool’s attack is difficult to resist, this is evident in the fact that they have scored 2.5 goals per game across 36 league games. Chelsea did this for 120 minutes. This is not to say that Liverpool did not create quality chances, but Chelsea’s defense stood up to the challenge of keeping a clean sheet against Liverpool in a cup final. The passing was generally very good, as well as the counter-pressing. Trevoh Chalobah was the busiest of the three, making 11 defensive actions, including a game-high 5 tackles. Thiago Silva and Antonio Rudiger were excellent in their distribution especially.

Midfielders: Mostly shaky

Liverpool did not have a tough time in midfield. By half time of regulation time, Chelsea’s central midfielders had combined for less than 30 total passes. They eventually grew into the game, but for the most part, Liverpool won the midfield battle comfortably. Jorginho was very good, he was better than his midfield partners throughout the game. His ball-carrying was also very good, in that he almost always took the right passing option. It was no surprise to see Mateo Kovacic come off in the 66th minute as he was underwhelming. Marcos Alonso played very well and got into very good positions in the final third. He was a constant passing outlet on Chelsea’s left flank. His penalty was also very good, especially with the added pressure of being the first taker. Reece James was one of Chelsea’s best midfielders on the day. His penalty was superb.

Forwards: Hardworking but largely ineffective

Mason Mount will be talked about in the aftermath of this game but not for good reason. Ultimately, penalty shootouts are decided on the missed ones, not the scored ones. This means winners of shootouts often emerge when someone misses. This time it was Mason Mount but it could have been any player. What we can talk about is his performance before the shootout, and he wasn’t great. Christian Pulisic was better than Mount, but only just. He took too long in making THAT pass to Alonso and eventually overhit the pass. He completed an impressive four out of an attempted six dribbles though. Romelu Lukaku had nothing to work with throughout his time on the pitch.

Substitutes and manager

N’Golo Kante made some significant tackles when he came on in place of Kovacic. Other than that, the Frenchman did nothing of note. Azpilicueta’s underwhelming performance in extra time was made worse by his penalty miss in the shootout. Hakim Ziyech was Chelsea’s most impactful substitute, sound familiar? Many would remember Ziyech’s pitch-perfect cross that was cleared out of play just before Pulisic arrived to tuck it away.

Chelsea looked more threatening when Ziyech came on, though he got few chances to impress. He showed great mental strength to still tuck home his penalty even though he was delayed from taking it due to a flare thrown onto the pitch. Ruben Loftus-Cheek came on in the 105th minute, only to be substituted off again in the 120th minute for Ross Barkley.

It was a strange one because while Loftus-Cheek did nothing spectacular, he also didn’t do anything to warrant being taken off 14 minutes after he was brought on. It seemed like Ross Barkley was brought on for the penalty shootout, and to be fair to him and Thomas Tuchel, Barkley scored his penalty.

Thomas Tuchel, for his part, didn’t do much wrong. His substitution of Ziyech for Lukaku was strange as you’d have expected Tuchel to want both of them on the pitch at the same time. To be fair to Tuchel, he had to consider the possibility of extra time and penalties and from that perspective, he managed his substitutions well.

Ratings:
Mendy: 8.5
Chalobah: 7.5
Silva: 7
Rudiger: 7
James: 7.5
Jorginho: 7.5
Kovacic: 6.5
Alonso: 7.5
Mount: 6
Pulisic: 7
Lukaku: 6
Kante (66′): 6.5
Ziyech (85′): 7
Azpilicueta (105′): 4
Loftus-Cheek (105′-120′): 6
Tuchel: 8