Caoimhin Kelleher made two saves in the spot-kicks as the home side prevailed 5-4 and progressed to a last-four showdown with Arsenal in January.
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Jurgen Klopp was happy with the fightback shown by his Liverpool players as they twice came from two-goal deficits to defeat Leicester City in the penalty shootout. The dramatic victory ensured that they qualified for the Carabao Cup semi-finals. Having trailed 2-0 and 3-1 in Wednesday night’s tie at Anfield, the Reds forced a penalty shootout. Goals from Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, substitute Diogo Jota and then Takumi Minamino in the 95th minute helped them make it 3-3. Most notably, Caoimhin Kelleher made two saves in the spot-kicks as the home side prevailed 5-4 and progressed to a last-four showdown with Arsenal in January.
After the match, Klopp – in his press conference – said, “Oh, I am really, really happy. Really happy with the performance, with the spirit, with the mentality, in a lot of moments with the football. Of course it was difficult for us in the first half, we had to make a lot of changes and then in the end, Neco can play an offensive role definitely, but then together with Conor in that situation that didn’t work out that well. Even [though] Conor is an incredible talent, I love the boy to bits, he will be a Liverpool player in the future but today in the combination we had to make changes for the second half.”
“Tyler because of the yellow card and Billy just because Ibou was there, it was clear he can play 45 minutes. We just had to make sure – and I actually wanted to make sure – he will not start because otherwise you let him play maybe a little bit longer, which was not right for today. So all the changes had reasons.”
“First half, always when we played football we were good. When we played the right football we were good. When we played exactly in their formation, then it was not that good and then they won their balls easily and then they had their counter-attacks and scored easy goals. OK, the first two; Maddison was obviously… we lost the ball before that as well in a not very comfortable moment and he could use his shooting skills.”
Klopp went on to shower praise on young goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher for his display on the night. Asked how big a moment it was for Kelleher, he said, “Yeah, of course it’s important. But he is an outstanding goalkeeper, I don’t want to say anymore he’s a ‘talent’. For goalies maybe it’s possible because they are talents a bit longer because they can play longer. But he is an outstanding goalie; with his feet, game understanding, all the goalie skills.”
“John [Achterberg] and Jack [Robinson] over the years did an incredible job with the boy, it’s really outstanding. Of course it’s nice. It’s not the first time he was part of these spectacular games, against Arsenal [in 2019] it was similar. But now he is even a step further. Like I said, he saved our life, was really helpful tonight.”
Klopp then shifted his focus to Minamino’s performance on the night and also spoke about the equalising goal. “Top goal, top performance. When you change that much, that’s not 100 per cent fair when you then always expect that him and him and him have to play their absolute A game. But he played a really good game today,” he added.
“From a tactical point of view he is outstanding and it’s so cool for him that he could score that goal. It was a great goal, it was very important, it was in the best possible moment. And he deserved it, he deserved this goal for all the things he did tonight and for all the things he did in the last few months and years. So I’m really happy for him.”
