Chelsea player ratings vs Liverpool: How many chances do you want?! Misfiring Conor Gallagher sums it up as profligate Blues pass up glorious opportunity to win Carabao Cup

This will hurt Chelsea for a very long time. No matter how many mitigating circumstances - inexperience, bad luck, injuries etc. - you attempt to place on it, their gut-wrenching extra-time defeat to Liverpool in the Carabao Cup final on Sunday was a colossal missed opportunity.

The spurned chances, of which there was so, so many, will be haunting Mauricio Pochettino's dreams tonight, with the injury-ravaged Reds somehow clinging on for long enough for Virgil van Dijk to head home the game's only goal late in the additional period.

In a pulsating first half, Cole Palmer saw a close-ranged effort wonderfully saved by Caoimhin Kelleher and Raheem Sterling had a goal marginally ruled out for offside. Liverpool, had their chances too, with Cody Gakpo hitting the woodwork and Conor Bradley somehow being denied by some heroic Levi Colwill defending.

Incredibly, the intensity was dialled up further after the break. Chelsea let a string of presentable chances go begging either side of Van Dijk's header being controversially chalked off by VAR for an infringement by Wataru Endo. And, in a climatic end to normal time, Liverpool survived a goalmouth scramble of epic proportions, before Conor Gallagher hit the post and then blazed an excellent opening high and wide.

But, after being denied in normal time, Van Dijk would punish Chelsea from a set piece in the 118th minute, nodding home a Kostas Tsimikas corner to send the travelling Reds behind the goal loopy. A few minutes later, with red smoke from the pyrotechnics let of after the goal still covering the Wembley turf, the final whistle was blown and all the Blues could do was trudge off with the bitter taste of disappointment in their mouths.

GOAL rates Chelsea's players from a classic final...