Winning on penalties at Wembley on Sunday and bringing home the first trophy of the season should give everyone at the club a huge lift, especially the players. Fans of other teams have been very quick to point out 'it's only the Carling Cup' but this season we're not in Europe, we're not realistically challenging for the league so that leaves two competitions for us, we've won one and have a home draw in the quarter final of the other, can we ask for much more? Some of the press and opposition fans have been attempting to take the shine off our triumph by saying we didn't play well in the final and while this is true, the final alone does not win you a competition. It's very rare a team wins a tournament without a dodgy performance somewhere along the way. If we had beaten Cardiff on penalties in the quarter final and beaten Chelsea 2-0 in the final I think we would be getting alot more credit than we seem to be and this emphasises the role the entire squad has played in simply getting us to Wembley and really marks it down as a victory for all the playing staff, not just the starting XI in the final.
Experienced Liverpool players like Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher must have had occasional thoughts that their careers may end without winning another trophy so this will certainly lift some of that self inflicted pressure from their shoulders and allow them to play with more freedom in the future. It will also serve as a reminder to them of how it feels to lift silverware for Liverpool and provide them with more determination to taste success in the red shirt again.
Younger members of our squad, the likes of Jay Spearing, Martin Kelly, Jack Robinson, John Flanagan and Sebastian Coates have all played a part in our run to the final and can have a feeling that they have contributed to another victory for Liverpool Football Club. Only Spearing and Kelly made it into the final matchday squad but the others were all sat on the bench and heavily involved in the post match celebrations, as they deserved to be. Watching the victory from close quarters and contributing along the way can only aid their development as footballers and bodes well for the future of our club.
Maybe the most important aspect of the cup win is the effect it could have on our higher profile new arrivals, Downing, Carroll, Henderson and Adam have all impressed in patches but haven't yet hit a consistent run of form. Winning a trophy for Liverpool should give them all confidence in their own ability to make it at this level, they haven't held the team back and they belong in a side that competes for honours. Henderson is a good footballer but is quite clearly still learning the game, watching his own performance on such a big stage can help him identify which aspects of his game he needs to work on to allow him to perform consistently for us. Charlie Adam did okay but his need to improve his defensive qualities was evident, he can take heart from many aspects of his performance on Sunday but can also use the game as something to learn from. Andy Carroll worked hard and there are no complaints about his effort against Cardiff but he can take an obvious lesson from playing almost 100 minutes only to see the man who replaced him for the last 20 score what at the time looked like being our winning goal. If that doesn't emphasise to Carroll the importance of being clinical and taking on the responsibility of scoring goals for the team then nothing will. Stuart Downing has improved over the last few weeks and wasn't a definite starter at Wembley but he took the man of the match award, totally justifying Kenny's choice to play him. He stuck his penalty away with composure and lets hope he now knows how he has to perform in order to regularly win trophies.
For players like Pepe Reina, Martin Skrtel, Daniel Agger, Glen Johnson and Luis Suarez who are happy at Liverpool it reassures them that the club is heading in the right direction. These players must have caught the eye of one or two other clubs and we must remain competitive in order to keep our better players, the likes of Torres, Alonso and Mascherano have proved very difficult to replace so it is essential we keep hold of senior players like this so we can challenge for major honours, winning trophies like this can only help convince these players to stay with us.
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