Man City beats Liverpool on penalties to win League Cup

“I thought tonight we played very well”.

“City have a trophy secured, will surely progress in the Champions League and can not be written off in the league title pursuit, nine points behind leaders Leicester City with a game in hand”.

Willy Caballero’s penalty heroics were then decisive.

“It’s always spontaneous, it’s always like this and I never plan things like this. You can’t say it wasn’t important because it was”, Klopp said.

“He was also supporting and shouting before the game in the dressing room”.

Vincent Kompany, named the sponsors’ man of the match and only recently returned from his injury nightmare, was impenetrable and intelligent.

City almost regained their lead three minutes later through Fernando, but on this occasion Mignolet was equal to the effort, beating the ball clear after the Brazilian had poked the ball goalwards from six yards.

Former City midfielder James Milner’s poor back header gave the lurking Aguero a chance but he stabbed his effort well over. We left everything out on the pitch.

It was a fine end to the season for him.

“All the players want to be in the Champions League, that’s natural, because a club like Liverpool should be competing in the biggest competitions”. Cue delight in the City end.

Pellegrini had faced criticism when he confirmed understudy goalkeeper Willy Caballero would play at the Wembley showpiece in place of first-choice Joe Hart, despite an unsure display in the FA Cup hammering at Chelsea last weekend.

It Is really not the best moment but tomorrow morning we can change everything. Cardiff had better chances to win that match and Liverpool only advanced to the final because of a controversial handball call against Micah Richards of Manchester City in the second leg of the semifinals. Passing was slow and mistimed – a nervousness was restricting the quality on display.

The abuse appeared to bother Sterling at one point when he bloated a corner way over his team-mates and then with Manchester City leading 1-0 he was culpable of a truly terrible miss when he really should have scored.

“We deserved to win the game”, Pellegrini told Sky Sports.

After all, 3-1 wins in Seville and Kiev have been their finest performances of the season and suggest that a first ever quarter-final should not be the height of their European ambitions this season.

His Liverpool counterpart Jurgen Klopp, meanwhile, met with disappointment in his first attempt to win a trophy following his appointment as the successor to Brendan Rodgers in October.

The Chilean will look to leave Manchester on a high note and will be aware that he needs to win more than the League Cup in order to do so.