Pablo Zabaleta hails 'hero' Willy Caballero's penalty heroics

Manchester City full-back Pablo Zabaleta has praised stand-in keeper Willy Caballero after his heroics in the penalty shoot-out against Liverpool.

Caballero repaid the faith shown in him by manager Manuel Pellegrini amid calls for him to be axed from the starting line-up for the Capital One Cup final after a shaky performance against Chelsea in the FA Cup sixth round.

"I am so pleased for Willy. He was the hero of the day," said Zabaleta. "We need to give a lot of credit to Willy because we are a team, we are a group. Players can win games but teams win trophies.

"I think Willy deserved to be in goal because he had been playing in this cup from the beginning. It was a great way for him to finish at Wembley and win his first trophy with Manchester City, to stop penalties and be the main man of the team."

This Wednesday will see a repeat of Sunday's final when  City travel to Anfield as they look to close the nine-point gap between themselves and league leaders Leicester City.

"It is going to be a huge game for us to try to win and get back on track," Zabaleta said.

Zabaleta believes City need to become more clinical after wasting key opportunities in Sunday's game and thinks they could have won the game in normal time having dominated over the 90 minutes.

Zabaleta said: "We should have won the game in the second half after 90 minutes. We were better in big parts of the game, probably had the best chances. But we missed them; we were not clinical enough to kill the game off.

"Going to extra time and penalties is hard but at the end of the day we are happy because we won.

"It is fantastic. I am very pleased for the performance of the team."