Xabi Alonso handed new regret as Liverpool continue Chelsea’s penalty nightmare

As Xabi Alonso can testify, Liverpool and Chelsea have history when it comes to penalties. As a man who won both the Champions League and the FA Cup on spot kicks in his time at Anfield knows, their trophies can come courtesy of a prowess from 12 yards.

And so there was a certain predictability that Alonso’s return to Anfield ended in a shootout, and that Liverpool won it. Chelsea have had five shootouts against them and lost them all, starting in the 2007 Champions League semi-finals, when Alonso was among the Liverpool scorers. Chelsea had lost, too, in the 2019 Super Cup, the 2022 Carabao Cup and the 2022 FA Cup. “Once we reached the penalties there is going to be a sad sight,” said Alonso. There is for Chelsea, anyway.

An evening with some terrific penalties ended with a terrible one, Wesley Fofana skying Chelsea’s eighth of the shootout, and ninth of the night, into the Kop. That both players who had conceded spot kicks in the first half missed them at the end of the game may have been a coincidence; at least Ryan Gravenberch’s mishaps did not cost Liverpool.

But for Alonso, with Chelsea in a rare season out of Europe, the first chance of silverware is gone. For the third time in six seasons, Liverpool have knocked them out of this tournament. “It is a small setback, probably the least important competition,” said Alonso, but Chelsea have not won a domestic cup since 2018. Meanwhile, Liverpool are taking the hard route towards a third Carabao Cup in six seasons. After facing Spurs and Chelsea, they have got Iraola’s old club in the quarter-finals. “The only thing I wouldn’t want is Bournemouth,” he lamented. “We haven’t been lucky with the draws.”

Yet Liverpool had much else to enjoy, including the fact the ultimately decisive spot kick was converted by Joe Gomez, who has never scored a goal in 12 seasons and 278 games at Anfield.

Alexis Mac Allister, Alexander Isak, Cody Gakpo, Florian Wirtz and Bradley Barcola had also found the net from 12 yards; that all bar Gakpo were substitutes may have rewarded Iraola for his Carabao Cup policy of holding some of his premier players back and introducing them for the closing stages. “When I have done the last subs and I put Alexis and Alex on, it starts to be in your head,” said Iraola. “Those are the best ones probably that you can put.”

Chelsea were at least spared an unwanted action replay when Kostas Tsimikas, who had scored the winning penalty against them at Wembley in 2022, missed the target after Valentin Barco hit the post. There had been no saves in the first 12 penalties, then two in two, Mike Penders parrying Ryan Gravenberch’s effort and Giorgi Mamardashvili stopping from the debutant Emmanuel Emegha.

On a night of 18 penalties, the only goals in regulation time also came from 12 yards as they traded penalties, both conceded stupidly and needlessly in swift succession.

Gravenberch had ploughed through Moises Caicedo and Rogers scored; but for Cole Palmer’s sending off against Tottenham, he would have been on spot-kick duties. But then Gakpo, too, is normally further down the queue to take them for Liverpool.

However, he drilled in his spot kick after Fofana handled the ball in his attempts to stop Virgil van Dijk from meeting Tsimikas’ corner. No sooner had Chelsea been gifted a lead than they presented Liverpool with a leveller.

There could have been a winner thereafter. After his traumatic outing against Tottenham, Penders made a brilliant save to repel Ronald Araujo’s header. It was redemptive, too, when he denied Barcola, the rookie showing his considerable talent. “He looked really solid,” said Alonso.

At the other end, Mamardashvili denied Marco Palestra a first Chelsea goal when the summer signing was supplied by Rogers. Over the 90 minutes, the scoreline was probably fair. They cancelled each other out.

Alonso can be flexible in his tactics and sought to match up his boyhood friend Iraola’s system. His Chelsea played 4-4-1-1; so, two decades ago, did Rafa Benitez’s Liverpool teams. There were echoes of the past, some of the rancour of the clashes of the 2000s. When the Anfield crowd saluted one of the heroes of 2005, a Spaniard signed by Rafa Benitez, they were singing about Luis Garcia, not Alonso.

Another of Liverpool’s finest midfielders of the 21st century, Henderson, was greeted with boos on his return to Anfield, largely for joining Chelsea but a Champions League-winning captain held his nerve to score his spot kick as the Kop jeered. If Henderson’s move to Stamford Bridge was a surprise, so was his deployment here, in an unexpectedly advanced role as a No 10. Perhaps it made him the deputy for the suspended Palmer. His Liverpool counterpart was James McConnell, another holding midfielder playing just behind a lone striker.

With more defensively-minded personnel in attacking areas, perhaps it was unsurprising there were few chances. There was a shortage of creativity, a surfeit of caution. With Joao Pedro injured and Palmer out, Chelsea only had one of their first-choice front three. Liverpool kept their three biggest buys in reserve, three £100m on a bench that cost more than half a billion pounds. Each came on, and each scored in the shootout while Chelsea ended up with three misses.