Pochettino must look at what Liverpool have and weep...
AS Liverpool and their manager Jurgen Klopp began their celebrations at fulltime, Mauricio Pochettino of Chelsea turned and looked the other way. Some things, after all, are just too painful to observe.
For this was not just a football match lost by Pochettino and his team. No, this was a triumph of one creed over another, a victory for continuity, patience and planning over the crudeness of a boom-and-bust football culture that once served Chelsea well but in these times of financial restrictions is now starting to drag at the London club’s heels.
Pochettino is a good football manager who understands his sport and understands people. The Argentine must look at what Klopp will bequeath to whoever succeeds him next season and weep. It is a million miles away from what he has at Chelsea.
Liverpool are a club futureproofed to be competitive, a club shot through with the values and principles installed steadily and without pause by Klopp during his eight-and-a-half years at Anfield. It is this that enabled them to win this final with just a couple of first picks left on the field at the end of extra-time.
Chelsea, on the other hand, have been thrown together at great expense, a vast group of talented but inexperienced players not so much assembled but spat out by an enormous football data machine. It is this that enabled them to lose this final against Klopp’s mish-mash of seniors, reserves and kids.
Chelsea could have won this game. They had their chances. Liverpool’s reserve goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher was terrific. So too the defensive pairing of Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate.
But the truth is that Chelsea were inferior in all the statistical areas that matter. Possession, shots, attempts on target and, of course, goals. That is what tells the story of Chelsea’s sixth consecutive failed attempt to win a major final here at Wembley.
As Klopp chatted to Anfield legend and four-time winner of the League Cup Kenny Dalglish in the tunnel after the game, it was tempting to wonder who Pochettino turns to at Stamford Bridge when he needs a word or seeks a connection to what his club is really about.
Co-owner Todd Boehly? It seems unlikely. Boehly, after all, is the man who walked in a couple of years ago and talked about long-term strategies and about plotting a gentle and transitional course from the chaotic excitement of the Roman Abramovich era towards something more sustainable. And then sacked his first manager, Graham Potter, after less than seven months.
And now Chelsea are here, tumbling back and forth in their own expensive washing machine while clubs such as Manchester City and Arsenal embarrass them. This was Liverpool’s turn to triumph at Chelsea’s expense but there will be others until the penny finally drops at Stamford Bridge.
Money will not solve Chelsea’s problems. Not anymore. The Premier League’s spending rules will make sure of that. Ask Manchester United about that. Ask Newcastle. They know the feeling.
Pochettino has not always cut a convincing figure in his debut season at Chelsea. At times his team has not looked terribly well coached. In extra-time here at a frenzied Wembley, Chelsea fell away while Liverpool came on strong.
As Harvey Elliott — a 20-yearold taken from Fulham when he was only 16 — headed a good chance against the goalkeeper’s legs in extra-time, he ran off the shoulder of the desperately static and unaware Mykhailo Mudryk to do so. Mudryk is 23 and cost north of £80million in January last year. He was used as a substitute here and was terrible. If anyone sums up the errors of Boehly’s early years at Chelsea it is the Ukrainian.
Pochettino may never get a tune out of Mudryk. Some players are beyond help. He may well improve Cole Palmer, though, and Levi Colwill and Conor Gallagher — if he isn’t sold — and Malo Gusto. Pochettino has traditionally been good at that. He did it at Tottenham and, given time, the chances are he will do it at Chelsea.
But what happens if Chelsea finish 10th this season? What happens if they don’t — as would appear inevitable now — finish in the European places? What do the Chelsea ownership do then? Cut his legs off? Rip up yet another plan and start again?
That may well be where the smart money is but at some point Chelsea are going to have to prove themselves smarter than that. At some point they are going to have to turn that washing machine off and interrupt the monotonous and self-defeating churn of change and renewal.
It may not feel like this as Chelsea and their supporters wake up and consider a big chance missed but the fact is that Pochettino probably represents the best chance they have of moving forwards. All those years ago, as Liverpool waved off Brendan Rodgers in October 2015, Klopp walked in to Anfield on the back of a promise of time and measured investment. Liverpool’s need back then was as great as Chelsea’s is now and what we witnessed yesterday was that faith made good.
This was a remarkable victory for Klopp’s Liverpool. Perhaps as good an individual, isolated triumph as any the German has masterminded over the years.
Liverpool have spent money on Klopp’s watch. Yesterday’s match winner Van Dijk cost £75m all on his own. But Liverpool’s great trick this last decade has been to spend money on the right players and right people while continuing to pay due attention to what they could mine from within.
It’s the elixir of football planning in the modern age and to find a way to mimic it is the challenge set before Chelsea today.