Liverpool earned a hard-fought victory over Chelsea in the EFL Cup fourth round, with former player Xabi Alonso suffering a defeat on his return to Anfield

Former Liverpool star Danny Murphy believes that Xabi Alonso will regret claiming that the EFL Cup wasn't a priority for Chelsea, after suffering a defeat at the hands of the Reds in midweek.

It came as quite an interesting meeting between the two teams, who would have had the competition lower down the pecking order in terms of competitiveness, but that is balanced against a desire to win silverware this season.

While both sides had rotated, it was a close affair, with Chelsea taking the lead through a Morgan Rogers penalty, before Liverpool levelled up from the spot as well courtesy of Cody Gakpo.

Neither of the two could be separated come the end of the regulation 90 minutes, so a penalty shootout was played out to decide the winner. In the end, the Reds earned passage through, with Giorgi Mamardashvili providing the heroics in a tense group of spot-kicks that swung back and forth.

It came as quite the boost for Andoni Iraola, who will now face off against his old side Bournemouth in the quarter-finals of the competition, with the potential for some early silverware to be earned.

However, for Alonso, his return to Anfield didn't go as planned. The former midfielder admitted after the game that his priority wasn't in the competition, as he reflected: "This is the least important competition for us. The Premier League is the main focus."

It was an interesting stance to take, considering that Chelsea doesn't have European football this season, leaving the new head coach with just the FA Cup and Premier League to fight for in terms of potential trophies.

For former Liverpool star Murphy, the comments were seen as bizarre, as he said on TalkSPORT: "He is right, he’s partly right yeah, it is [the lowest priority competition]. But you have to be realistic because as a Chelsea manager, it’s one of the two [cup competitions] you can win.

"You’re not winning the league, you’re not winning in Europe. So it was a strange comment; he’ll probably regret that, actually, thinking back, because it’s a great opportunity.

"I mean people always talk about [the EFL Cup] relieving pressure from managers and players. I think it was [Jose] Mourinho, I think his first trophy was the League Cup, it was with [Gerard] Houllier at Liverpool when we played.

"So it took the monkey off our back, we had so much more freedom in those last few months of the season cause it’s late February normally the final. So not the wisest thing to say and especially when he is under a bit of criticism because of recent decisions against Tottenham, because of the Estevao situation.”

It's a situation that has put a bit of pressure on the former Liverpool man, who had a positive start at Stamford Bridge that has since seen a few difficult results and scorelines turn against him.

It remains to be seen whether Alonso can turn that around to get some more positive results, with it being just over a month until the two teams face off again in the Premier League.