Man of the Match Virgil van Dijk was the one who scored the winning goal and produced the performance of a lifetime for this injury-hit Liverpool team.

As you can imagine, the 32-year-old was over the moon on Instagram at the win and he sent a message saying ‘that’s for you, Liverpool’.

In the comments section of the Dutchman’s IG post, he was lauded and applauded by many people far and wide, including Real Madrid’s Jude Bellingham.

It’s all deserved for a player who produced a proper captain’s performance for a team that was depleted, and in the end, had more kids than senior players in the XI.

That’s more embarrassing for Chelsea than anyone else because that billion-pound machine they built doesn’t even have half that value now.

Plus, they were shown up by a bunch of kids that, probably 12 months ago, weren’t even known to the vast majority of Liverpool supporters.

Virgil van Dijk praised after Carabao Cup final win

Real Madrid’s midfield star, Bellingham, wrote: ‘What a player’ in the comments section of van Dik’s IG post, which was also repeated by Andy Robertson.

The Scottish left-back started the game but was subbed off for Kostas Tsimikas at the end of normal time.

Wataru Endo, another player who produced a class display, hailed his skipper for his performance, as his partner in crime, Ibrahima Konate just wrote ‘again’.

Virgil van Dijk steps up a level

In the circumstances, this was one of van Dijk’s best-ever performances because he was near-on faultless from start to finish.

It needs to be noted that Liverpool still played a risky game. They didn’t sit back, but pushed forward and played a high line.

That resulted in Chelsea always seemingly outnumbering Liverpool when they were attacking, but van Dijk and Konate just didn’t let them through.

Time and time again, they shut down any attacks with defensive tackles and play of the highest order.