After 120 minutes of football on Sunday afternoon, the Carabao Cup final was set to be decided by a penalty shootout.
Liverpool and Chelsea had both failed to find back of the net despite a combined total of 31 shots, with as many as four goals disallowed due to offside calls.
The resulting shootout reached an incredibly high standard, with Jurgen Klopp's men eventually winning by 11-10. Caoimhin Kelleher even found the net, which meant every Reds player scored his attempt.
The quality of penalties can be assessed according to certain models. Similar to Expected Goals (xG), a value can be placed on the shot to determine its likelihood of beating the goalkeeper based on historical outcomes.
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After the clash, @PenaltyKickStat released findings surrounding the kicks involved. Using Opta data from a collection of 4,984 penalties, the shots which hit the target were allocated values based on historic results of similarly placed kicks.
According to the model in question, Liverpool's best penalty was taken by Mohamed Salah. The Egyptian found the top corner of the net, and was awarded a value of 0.98, suggesting that his effort is typically scored 98% of the time.
Second in the standings was Virgil van Dijk, who was bold enough to shoot towards the same corner that Kepa was occupying in order to play mind games with the Dutchman. The 30-year-old centre-back was awarded a value of 0.93 for his penalty.
James Milner started proceedings by hitting a penalty worth 0.89. His attempt was Liverpool's third-best shot, ahead of Trent Alexander-Arnold in fourth.
Despite the strong performances, Divock Origi and Diogo Jota could be deemed as relatively fortunate. The pair posted the joint-worst values for Klopp's team with 0.61 each, although both shots beat Kepa between the sticks.
From the Chelsea squad, Reece James hit the best penalty having been awarded a value of 0.88, ahead of Antonio Rudiger's 0.85 in second place. Romelu Lukaku was responsible for Chelsea's worst effort on target, valued at 0.61 which was the same as Origi and Jota.
According to the findings, Liverpool hit penalties worth roughly 8.9 goals in total, which was 1.9 more than those hit by Thomas Tuchel's outfit. Ultimately, it seems the best team won.
