Liverpool have earned their place in the EFL Cup final with a 2-0 victory over Arsenal at the Emirates this evening.-
The Gunners hard work from the first-leg turned out to be for nothing after coming off second-best this evening.
We looked positive early on. We appeared to be retaining possession well despite not enjoying too much luck in the final third, but unfortunately our fortunes were short-lived.
The Reds had the ball in the back of the net after Joel Matip had strayed offside to knock in from his team-mates header inside the opening 15 minutes, but our relief at VAR confirming the linesman’s decision was soon dispelled when Diogo Jota punished us just inside 20 minutes of play.
The Portuguese picked up the ball on the far left, before cutting inside through the legs of Takehiro Tomiyasu, before running central to place his effort beyond both centre-backs and Ramsdale.
There was a penalty shout shortly after when Gabriel Martinelli was brought down inside the box but our calls fell on deaf ears, and things didn’t get much better at all throughout the match.
Despite throwing in a number of crosses, Ramsdale was managing to meet most, and there was very few clearcut chances at either end.
In the second-half, our team appeared to tire, possibly growing frustrated with our lack of success in penetrating their backline, but there was one man who never gave up, but unfortunately Martinelli was forced to try and do something special with little other options available to him.
We knew the result was put to bed when Trent Alexander-Arnold put the ball over our defence into the path of Jota to complete his brace, and the writing was on the wall from that point, with around 10 minutes of normal time to play after that point.
There was little to be happy about this evening, although we knew it would be tough with just Lokonga as our only real central midfielder fit to start the match, and our 4-3-3 formation was found wanting once again this term.
I wish I could tell you that we were unlucky, or that the team showed some level of fight like in the first-leg, but personally, only Martinelli deserves any credit for his effort and performance today.
Did you notice any others who can still hold their head high today? Was the game lost before the game started due to our CM issues?
Patrick