Sometimes I get carried away with league results, but these cups are a different story. If I've learned anything before in football, it's to be ready for Liverpool to lose a final or in a knockout game well before that. I have now seen Liverpool play in 6 finals since the West Ham game, and in only one of those finals were they the stronger team. They also won that final against Cardiff as they should have. The overall point is that I have rarely seen Liverpool as the stronger team in the final. I really thought they would win the CL last year, even though the team was flawed. It was very much flawed as we saw in that final. The goalkeeper got a concussion, but we all know he was shit anyway. Our bench was also very much not good, and Henderson merely makes a decent 6, he was able to be exploited in a game like that. Things have changed. Liverpool will have six players who could make a difference from the bench this time.
Every team, great as they are, has flaws. This one is pretty damn great, but they have those flaws. The difference in this Liverpool is that their flaws are masked by great strengths. They don't have any technical wizard in the team, it should be hard for them to create this many chances. Instead they have fullbacks with 28 assists this season. They don't have anyone on the bench equal to the front three, but the existence of having three players that good suffices well enough, at least one or two of them will play and all three won't be injured at the same time. Alexander-Arnold can be weak in defense, this is a flaw that is masked by having Fabinho and Matip in this form, by having Henderson back as a box to box player who can come back to defend for the young man, by Salah never giving up as his shirt said.
I don't really expect Liverpool to win the final due to how many times I've seen them lose in a final, but I do think they have the strongest team they've had since the 80s. The team is loaded with world class players, I could see so many of them wearing any club's shirt and it wouldn't shock me in the least because that's how good they are. There are so many players who could show up at any given time to rescue the result.
Tottenham has their own quality. They could have bent over countless times during that game in Manchester as well as the one today. Their squad is not one of the best, I'll stand by that comment from earlier, but they don't give up. Poch has done a job similar to that of Benitez, making them believe they can win regardless of their qualities. Liverpool will have to be ready for that.
I just want to see the boys win a trophy. Its been a while, we've come close so many times. Some of them, like the Sevilla game in which the referee robbed us out of two or three stonewall penalties, were very painful.