Liverpool 4-0 Tottenham (Gakpo 34′, Salah 51′ pen, Szoboszlai 75′, Van Dijk 80′) – Reds win 4-1 on aggregate
ANFIELD — The Carabao Cup is not a competition that has inspired many songs at Anfield. Here, the currency of their silverware is measured in European Cups and league championships.
And yet it is a competition Liverpool have dominated more than any other club. Should they overcome Newcastle United in next month’s final between English football’s two most self-consciously passionate sets of supporters, it will be the 11th time a Liverpool captain has held it aloft.
Newcastle, nearing 70 years without a domestic trophy, would have preferred Tottenham to have clung on the one-goal advantage they held after the first leg in London. They would have backed themselves to overcome a patched-up Spurs side, fumbling for form. This slick relentless red machine represents another degree of difficulty entirely.
Ever since they found two late goals to avoid humiliation at Coventry City, Tottenham’s path through the competition has been precarious, setting them against both Manchester clubs.
Now, without their two first-choice centre-halves and facing perhaps the best side in Europe, it was imperative that Tottenham either scored first or held out long enough for Liverpool to start panicking.
As it was, Liverpool seemed overly anxious from the beginning but when Cody Gakpo drove home to level the semi-final on aggregate, there was just over an hour remaining.
That was an equation that always appeared beyond Tottenham and they lasted until five minutes after the interval when Antonin Kinsky brought down Darwin Nunez as he ran onto Mohamed Salah’s pass. Salah himself did the rest from the penalty spot.
Thereafter, the question was how many more. The answer was two as Alexis Mac Allister’s pass put Dominik Szoboszlai clear and Virgil van Dijk headed home from a corner. Liverpool also struck the frame of Kinsky’s goal twice.
As the cameras panned to the figure of the Tottenham chairman, Daniel Levy, slumped in his seat, the Kop began singing: “London Bridge is falling down, poor old Tottenham.”
And yet when the wreckage is sifted through there will be something Tottenham can take home from Merseyside. Or rather from the first half-hour.
Facing Liverpool without 10 first-team players was no place for Angeball, even from Ange Postecoglou, who wisely decided that his “non-negotiable” attacking tactics were suddenly negotiable.
His new signings both played. Kevin Danso, Austrian born, Milton Keynes raised and just signed on loan from Lens would have a baptism of fire. His last game had been at Le Havre, nearly a month before.
Mathys Tel, brought on loan from Bayern Munich, began on the bench but was brought on when Richarlison broke down in the first half. His Everton connections meant the Brazilian was given some fairly vile abuse as he limped off. Both will have easier games.
How many more games Postecoglou gets is open to question. As he stood stock still by the touchline, Anfield taunted the Tottenham head coach that he would be “sacked in the morning”. With Levy, someone, sometime usually is.
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