Carabao Cup Final
Manchester City and Chelsea could not separate themselves other than during the penalty shootouts. The Citizens beat the Blues 4-3 and win their second consecutive League Cup, the third in the last 4 years.
Man City, coach Guardiola on the success:
“I’m happy. It went to penalties, so compliment to Chelsea it was incredible performance. The important thing with penalties is personality, and they did it.
In penalties, everything can happen. We are happy to win back-to-back (cups) for the first time in our history.
You realise the team Chelsea have, they have champions. After the result two weeks ago (our 6-0 Premier League win at the Etihad), we knew it would be more difficult.
There are too many games, sometimes the pitches are not good, the ball is not perfect, and, in the end, people fall down. I am impressed how they can play so many games and not get injured but sometimes it just catches up with you.”
Chelsea coach Sarri on the difficult loss:
“I think if you saw the match you can understand very well that today the players played exactly the match we prepared yesterday so I think I’m fully in control of the situation.
Now I’d like to speak about our way of football today, which was a little bit different to other matches. Today we decided not to press very high in every situation in which their goalkeeper was involved. Because they are very able to use the goalkeeper and to come out of our pressing. So we decided from every goal-kick to wait 20 metres lower than we usually did, and we conceded nothing to the best team in Europe.
‘Today I’m really very happy because my feeling is that we’re improving. We could become a very solid team. After today we conceded nothing to Man City, which isn’t easy as they are very dangerous in the offensive phase and they usually score a lot. I’m happy with the performance and on the pitch I saw the performance which I prepared yesterday.”
