Liverpool 1 Man City 1 AET (Man City win Capital One Cup 3-1 on penalties)

In retrospect quite simply our luck ran out.  It was not to be.  Mostly out played throughout with City hitting the post, Simon Mignolet pulling off a string of critical saves and Raheem Sterling’s woeful finishing letting us off the hook more than once.

It was one step too far. Not this time being outplayed and rescuing ourselves in the realms of a penalty shoot out.  It started so promisingly, with Can, first up, coolness personified in chipping his penalty almost down the middle.  And then Fernandinho hit the post.

Caballero earmarked as City’s weak link became the hero saving brilliantly from Lucas, Milner and Lallana in turn crushing Liverpool’s dreams as Ya ya Toure swept home the winning penalty.

Before the match I questioned whether Jurgen Klopp had lost his sanity starting Lucas Leiva alongside Sakho and Adam Bodgan on the bench.  To be fair the Brazilian was simply imperious, intercepting, tackling and heading clearances as if his life depended on it and barking orders as if he was the de facto captain.

For all Mignolet’s brilliance with an abundance of brilliance saves the fact he presented City with their goal in open play letting the ball go through in stead of standing tall and gathering in the shot into his midriff spoke volumes.  It highlights the fact that five year contract or no five year contract he is a calamity waiting to happen and has no future at the club.

We depended on the brilliance of Daniel Sturridge to win us the game, but he lacked the sharpness only game time can bring and our lack of creativity and invention sold the England striker short although he played a key role in Coutinho’s equaliser intelligently playing the ball back across the face of goal for Lallana to shoot against the post before the Brazilian  swept home.

Origi came close, seeing his header from Milner’s cross palmed away, but in reality that was as good as it got in the 120 minutes of open play.

Christian Benteke, must have reached for his mobile the instant he returned to the changing room with his younger Belgian colleague once again preferred to him as a replacement and Sturridge out on his feet for the last third of the match.

We huffed and puffed in the engine room of midfield, but the quality was very rarely there and it has probably already dawned on Klopp that this midfield trio will not start as a threesome in the first game of next season.

The side lacks quality, but we already knew that and that Raheem Sterling picked up his first winner’s medal after leaving Anfield, is a further kick in the teeth even if he was poor in the extreme.

Man of the match: Lucas Leiva