Chelsea vs Liverpool LIVE: Carabao Cup final result and reaction after Virgil van Dijk nets extra-time winner

Just as Jurgen Klopp was learning a new phrase, Mauricio Pochettino was about to discover another. After eight years in England, the Liverpool manager chuckled at only just hearing Alan Hansen’s immortal line, ‘you don’t win trophies in football with kids’, a statement his remarkable Carabao Cup-winning side had proved wrong, just as Manchester United and Sir Alex Ferguson did so almost 30 years ago.

Whether “blue billion bottle jobs” lasts as long in football parlance remains to be seen, but at Wembley, Pochettino was faced with the realisation that Gary Neville’s damning assessment of his team could stick and hang over his players. Pochettino, downbeat and wounded, naturally defended his side and rejected Neville’s comments. “We are a young team and nothing to compare with Liverpool because they finished also with a few young players,” Pochettino responded. “It is impossible to compare and he knows that. He knows the dynamics are completely different.”

But Chelsea blew it and, deep down, Pochettino knew that too.

Mauricio Pochettino defended his players after “not fair” criticism from Gary Neville – who labelled Chelsea “blue billion pound bottle jobs” as they lost the Carabao Cup final to Liverpool in extra time.

Liverpool captain Virgil Van Dijk’s glancing header secured a 1-0 win for Jurgen Klopp’s side, who were missing as many as 11 injured players for the Wembley showpiece and relied on young, inexperienced players to come on late in the game.

Chelsea had the likes of £100m midfielders Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo on the pitch and were able to turn to almost £150m worth of talent from their own bench.

And so the long walk began. The head dropped, the shoulders sank and Conor Gallagher ran his hand across his face for a final time, the pain of his three misses in the Carabao Cup final written deep in his eyes. Chelsea’s wait for domestic silverware and their Wembley curse continues, with six straight defeats in domestic finals, three of them now to Liverpool. Yet Gallagher, on a different day, would have been a worthy match-winner for this Chelsea, a symbol of a new era. He came off exhausted, largely very good in an otherwise sloppy and disjointed performance from his team, but three lung-bursting runs into the Liverpool penalty box brought three opportunities. They were wasted and Chelsea, by the end, could have no complaints after they were stunned by Virgil van Dijk’s winner.

But the cruel twist in the fairytale start to Jurgen Klopp’s final season at Liverpool is that this will haunt Gallagher, perhaps for even longer than it will haunt Chelsea. It is abundantly clear how much this all means to Gallagher, the boy from the Chelsea academy desperate for the opportunity to be the boy done good. In many ways he already is, a senior player for Chelsea at 24, an England international. Yet he can feel like a temporary answer. Linked with a move away every six months, every transfer window brings a reminder that, for Chelsea’s financial accounts, he is more valuable to them if he leaves rather than if he stays.

And Gallagher, you sense, knows this.

Jamie Braidwood at Wembley:

In the end at Wembley, penalties were not quite required, but otherwise, fans watching at home and from afar could be forgiven for wondering if it was a two-year-old replay unfolding before their eyes.

Caoimhin Kelleher heroics against Chelsea? Check. VAR-led disallowed goals? Check. Woodwork hit by both teams? Check again. And above all else, the unusual sight of Liverpool failing to match their usual exploits in the final third, both in terms of creating chances and – more importantly – taking them.

For a club which habitually nets over 100 a season – they were at the century mark already for 2023/24 heading into this game – cup finals seem to render them improbably impotent in the penalty box. Even last year, when cup finals were a distant dream, the Reds scored 103 in all competitions.

Liverpool hadn’t scored a single goal in their past three cup finals, two of which were against this same opponent. Indeed, in 10 finals – major and minor – under Jurgen Klopp’s leadership, the Reds had only scored 11 goals in total and only three times scored more than once in a single occasion. And, as the whistle blew on 90 minutes of the Carabao Cup final at Wembley, it was no goals in four.

Karl Matchett at Wembley:

By the end, it was the sort of side only seen on the pitch together in pre-season friendlies. There was Jayden Danns, James McConnell and Bobby Clark, who have two first-team starts for Liverpool between them. And they were taking on Chelsea, flush from spending £1bn, in the most expensive makeover in footballing history.

But money couldn’t buy Chelsea a trophy or the spirit, ambition and resolve of Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool side. The first silverware of the season, the first of a possible quadruple, went to the kindergarten Klopps, to the kids who left Chelsea with a billion regrets. This was another example of Klopp’s ability to script the improbable. The last chapters in his story may be as astonishing as some of the earlier ones.

Richard Jolly at Wembley:

Liverpool’s injury woes took a turn for the worse when Ryan Gravenberch was carried off on a stretcher less than half an hour into the Carabao Cup final.

Virgil van Dijk’s header won the game for Liverpool with just three minutes left of extra time, after the sides could not be separated, but it was a team of youngsters who were on the field for the final whistle.

Conor Bradley was named in the starting XI, with first-choice right-back Trent Alexander-Arnold ruled out with a lateral collateral ligament injury.

Gary Neville wrote the headlines when he made a decisive statement in the aftermath of Virgil van Dijk’s winning goal for Liverpool against Chelsea in the Carabao Cup final.

The game looked like it might go to penalties without a goal, just like the 2022 final had done between the two sides, but Liverpool’s captain and most experienced player timed his run perfectly to head home a Kostas Tsimikas corner with just three minutes of extra time remaining.

When the final whistle blew, Neville, proclaimed as co-commentator on Sky Sports: “(Jurgen) Klopp’s kids against the blue billion-pound bottlejobs”.

The Carabao Cup final was hit by ticketing issues in the build up to kick off that saw at least hundreds of fans queuing outside the gate.

In the half an hour before kick off, there were crowds of both sets of fans left struggling to get in.

Sky Sports reported that there was an issue initially affecting Liverpool fans, but the same problem was also evident at both gates.

Jurgen Klopp joined his Liverpool team to sing a rendition of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ after winning the Carabao Cup in extra time on Sunday 25 February.

Pushing aside his colleagues, Klopp goes towards the fans assembled in Wembley Stadium to encourage the singing of the iconic football anthem.

Liverpool beat Chelsea in the final 1-0 after a tense regular-time game brought on a late extra-time goal scored by captain Virgil van Dijk.