Jurgen Klopp said Liverpool’s youngsters in Sunday’s Carabao Cup final win over Chelsea had been prepared for that moment by the “environment we’ve created together” behind the scenes.
Without the likes of Mohamed Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Dominik Szoboszlai, Darwin Nunez in the matchday squad, Klopp named numerous teenagers on the bench. Many of them came on and saw Liverpool through during extra-time when Klopp’s team were actually on top.
“I’m pretty sure when we brought on all the kids, people thought, ‘Okay, that’s it, they’ve given up, they have a game on Wednesday’,” the boss told Sky Sports afterwards.
“It really wasn’t the case – we needed fresh legs and the legs we had were very young. But they did the job. They did the job. What they did…it’s unbelievable.”
Bobby Clark, Jayden Danns and James McConnell have all played only a handful of first-team games between them. Conor Bradley started the game, having becoming a key player in recent weeks. Jarell Quansah also appeared in the second half of extra-time and is still only 21.
Asked how it was possible to get that level of performance out of a group so young, Klopp responded: “I think it’s the environment that we’ve created together. They’ve trained with us for a while so they know exactly what they have to do. When we have time for 11 v 11 in training, they’re a pain. That’s what you have to be, and they were a pain [for Chelsea].”
He continued: “It’s not only them. How good was Harvey Elliott? [Wataru] Endo, oh my God. He walked up for the ceremony with the stiffest legs I ever saw. We’ll have to see what price we pay for this game. But you cannot do it differently. You’re in a final, you fight with all you have and then have a look who’s available for the next game. There will be a team in a Liverpool shirt.”
