Caballero City’s cup hero

Martin Samuel

Maybe this will be Manuel Pellegrini’s season after all. Willy Caballero was the shootout hero, and a team that had been deadly from the spot on its way to Wembley suddenly couldn’t have found the target, even with radar.

Liverpool had been involved in 17 penalty shootouts before this – two in the Capital One Cup this season – and had won 14. To go down 3-1 here, with Emre Can the only scorer, was very much out of character.

Then again, the same could be said of Caballero’s heroics after his calamitous appearance for Manchester City at Chelsea last week. Most felt Pellegrini made a mistake to continue with his understudy after that, with Joe Hart fit and available. Yet Caballero repaid that faith, saving from Lucas Leiva, Philippe Coutinho and Adam Lallana as City dominated the shootout stage.

Typically, after Fernandinho had missed and Jesus Navas and Sergio Aguero had scored, it fell to Yaya Toure to take what proved to be the last. He walked slowly to the City end, slowly to retrieve the ball – but the outcome was never in doubt.

So Pep Guardiola will have to win at least one trophy next season, if he is to match Pellegrini’s farewell campaign at Manchester City.

Yes, a shootout victory in a competition that is fourth on City’s wish list when the season starts is hardly the Holy Grail, but it means Pellegrini will at least leave a winner in May, and place a marker for Guardiola to match.

On balance, City deserved it. They were the best team over 90 minutes, Simon Mignolet made three superb saves – and committed one horrendous howler to gift City their goal – and City should have had a second-half penalty, too. What followed suggests they would probably have scored it.

It was a very ordinary first half, pretty much all downhill after 36 seconds. That was when Robert Firmino cut in from the left and forced a save from Manchester City second-string goalkeeper Willy Caballero. It was a start that promised much, but the next 45 minutes delivered little.

The key event was, literally, an accident. In the 16th minute, Can and Mamadou Sakho went for the same ball and clashed heads, brutally. Can could continue but his team-mate was clearly groggy. Jurgen Klopp could see this and was repeatedly looking to Sakho for guidance on whether he should continue. He should have acted sooner, but the player was keen.

Klopp sent Kolo Toure to warm up but in the 23rd minute, the unnecessary delay almost proved costly. David Silva played Aguero in and his run left an unsteady Sakho on his backside. Aguero shot and Mignolet, the Liverpool goalkeeper, did magnificently to tip the ball onto his left post. It came out, straight to Sakho, who could summon just enough sense to hoof it clear.

Klopp had seen enough. The ball went out of play, Sakho sank to the turf and his medical team was sent to retrieve him. Again, he showed foolhardly desire to continue, dousing his head in bottles of water, in an attempt to regain focus.

Overruled by Klopp and his medical staff, he reacted furiously, kicking a pastic bottle in anger and sitting on the bench with a training top over his head.

Liverpool now had Lucas and Kolo Toure as centre halves, but City failed to take advantage. Instead it was Liverpool who applied pressure, Daniel Sturridge and Alberto Moreno both appealing for penalties, although neither fall seemed greatly convincing. A more serious offence was Lucas' lunge that hit Aguero in the 42nd minute. A foul but no booking from Michael Oliver, apparently operating from that unique rulebook available only to English referees these days.

It was in evidence in the second half, too, when he denied Manchester City one of the most obvious penalties this ground will have seen – and one that could have wrapped up the game, too. They were leading 1-0 already when Alberto Moreno committed one of his more common defensive atrocities, attempting to tackle Aguero with his back to the man, stretching out a leg behind him. No, me neither. Aguero was tripped, Oliver inexplicably waved play on. He found occasion to book seven players in the 90 minutes – four Liverpool, three Manchester City – but missed the most important call of all.

Just as Raheem Sterling missed the most important chances, to the delight of the red end. In the 60th minute, Yaya Toure found David Silva on the right, his cross clipping Kolo Toure and sending the ball into Sterling’s path. It was the clearest chance of the game, but he put it wide. In the 80th minute, another good opportunity fell to Sterling, this time from an Aguero cross. Once again, his aim was off.

So it was a Fernandinho goal, and an absolute howler from Mignolet that separated the teams. It came in the 49th minute. David Silva picked up the ball in front of about 1 000 empty seats, left unattended after half-time prawn sandwiches, and hit a crossfield ball for Aguero. He held it up neatly and delayed his pass until Fernandinho flew past on the overlap. He released it into the path of the Brazilian who struck it across goal.

Was it a shot? Was it a cross? We cannot say. Whatever it was, Mignolet responded badly, the ball flying under his body, and diverting into the net. The recently extended contract appears one of the more impetuous moves of Jurgen Klopp’s Anfield reign – even if Mignolet did in some way redeem himself late on with a fine close range save from Fernando.

Liverpool, it had to be said, had disappointed. Even with the flaky Caballero in goal they had failed to put pressure on City at the back, and they looked to be fading from this match without much of an argument. Yet events in the 83rd minute showed the value of just getting bodies into the box. Sterling failed to clear, Daniel Sturridge crossed, Lallana lashed the ball against the far post and it came out perfectly for Coutinho who returned it smartly. At a time when City should have been raising the trophy, they were instead battling through extra-time. – Daily Mail

MATCH FACTS

Liverpool: Mignolet, Clyne, Lucas, Sakho (Toure 25), Moreno (Lallana 72), Milner, Henderson, Can, Coutinho (Origi 80), Firmino, Sturridge.

Subs not used: Bogdan, Benteke, Allen, Flanagan.

Booked: Can, Clyne, Moreno, Coutinho, Lallana

Goal: Coutinho 83

Man City: Caballero, Sagna (Zabaleta 90), Kompany, Otamendi, Clichy, Fernandinho, Fernando (Navas 90), Silva (Bony 110), Toure, Sterling, Aguero.

Subs not used: Hart, Kolarov, Demichelis, Iheanacho.

Booked: Fernando, Kompany, Toure, Fernandinho.

Goal: Fernandinho 49

Referee: Michael Oliver (Northumberland)

Attendance: 80 206