Mario Melchiot says Chelsea star did not look well-prepared in League Cup final defeat to Liverpool

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Former Blues defender Mario Melchiot believes Chelsea goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga was not well-prepared for the penalty shoot-out in the League Cup final defeat to Liverpool on Sunday.

The way Chelsea lost the game, Thomas Tuchel decision to switch goalkeepers for the penalty shoot-out was always going to attract a lot of attention.

Especially considering how well Edouard Mendy had been playing up before being replaced, Arrizabalaga had to do really well to justify the substitution.

He did not, unfortunately, and even worse, his failure to convert his penalty handed the win to Liverpool.

Unlike Jamie Redknapp who was clearly against switching goalkeepers for penalties, Melchiot insisted Tuchel did not make a mistake.

“Look, Tuchel said the right thing,” the former Netherlands international told talkSPORT.

“They talked about it before. If something works, why would you change?

“Mendy was exceptional — he is my first goalkeeper. But if I see that my second goalkeeper is good at penalties, why would I not take the advantage, put him on, and let him do it?

“If it doesn’t work out, then later on I’ll figure it out.

“But he [Tuchel] took that step, and I would have done the same.”

The one thing that Melchiot was not impressed by, however, was Arrizabalaga’s poor penalty effort.

“I didn’t think Kepa practised enough [in terms of taking penalty kicks],” he added.

“The way he struck the ball, it was almost a clearance. It wasn’t like a goalkeeper who wanted to pick a spot.

“The only thing I would say is that Kepa needs to practise that particular thing.”

To be fair to Arrizabalaga, he could not have expected that he would have to be among the penalty takers.

Given his role as a penalty shoot-out goalkeeper at Chelsea now, though, he should now start improving his spot-kicks, as the team may need him to do so in the next months.

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