Caoimhin Kelleher: Liverpool boss says 'sentiment' won as back-up goalkeeper helps Liverpool win Carabao Cup

It was a tale of three goalkeepers at Wembley Stadium on Sunday — and it was a low-profile Irishman who emerged the hero ahead of the world's most expensive goalkeeper and an Africa Cup of Nations winner.

Having picked 23-year-old academy product Caoimhin Kelleher for every game in this season's Carabao Cup competition bar one, Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp stayed true to his promise in selecting the Cork-born keeper ahead of established number one Alisson.

And his gamble paid off handsomely as Kelleher produced a string of fine saves as Liverpool and Chelsea ended 120 minutes of a dramatic final at 0-0, before scoring the winning penalty in a memorable 11-10 penalty shootout triumph.

At the other end, Chelsea and Senegal's number one Edouard Mendy was substituted by boss Thomas Tuchel in the dying seconds of extra time, as replacement, and so called penalty expert, £71m man Kepa Arrizabalaga missed the decisive spot-kick to hand Jurgen Klopp's men a record ninth league cup triumph.

«It is so nice that it [his inclusion] paid off. He deserves it,» Klopp said. «I am two things, a football manager and a human being and the human being won this time.

»He is a young boy, we ask him to do a lot, he starts playing in the competition and then we get to the final and I tell him he cannot play..." Klopp added.

«In professional football there should be space for sentiment. At the training centre we have a wall that all goalkeepers are on who won something and Caoimhin can go on it — that's how it should be — absolutely great.»

Klopp has previously described Kelleher as a project of the club's goalkeeper coach John Achterberg and it is hardly surprising given his background.

The 23-year-old was a prolific striker as a schoolboy and only