Liverpool thumped West Ham United in the Carabao Cup quarter-finals to earn their place in the last four of the competition.
Goals from Dominik Szoboszlai, Cody Gakpo, Mohamed Salah and a brace from Curtis Jones secured a deserving 5-1 win for the Reds on the night, with Jarrod Bowen getting a consolation goal with West Ham’s only shot on target of the game.
How the game unfolded
Liverpool thoroughly dominated the opening exchanges of the game at Anfield, retaining possession in and around West Ham’s for large periods.
The Reds saw two sighters from Cody Gakpo and Harvey Elliott drift narrowly wide of the post in the opening 15 minutes, before they eventually got their deserved opener in the 27th minute. Said goal would come courtesy of Dominik Szoboszlai who took full advantage of West Ham’s defence dropping off to canon a stunning effort into the bottom left corner of the net from fully 25 yards out.
It was so nearly 2-0 on the stroke of half-time when Elliott curled a beautiful cross into the West Ham penalty area. Cody Gakpo rose highest at the near post to latch onto ball, however he was unable to direct his subsequent header goalward – seeing the ball spin narrowly wide of the foot of the post instead.
The home side did eventually get their second goal at the start of the second half through Curtis Jones. The midfielder was played through on the left-hand side of the penalty area by Darwin Nunez and, from an extremely tight angle, Jones was able to squeeze the ball under Alphonse Areola and into the net.
Cody Gakpo was next to get in on the goalscoring action for Liverpool, making it 3-0 in the 70th minute. The Dutch international, like Szoboszlai did in the first half, capitalised on West Ham’s backline dropping off to fire an effort into the bottom corner from outside of the box.
Surprisingly, and wholly against the run of play, West Ham managed to get a goal back in the final 15 minutes through their star man Jarrod Bowen. The forward had barely touched the ball all game, but still was able to get in on the scoring action when he cut in from the right and curled brilliantly into the far right corner.
It wasn’t 3-1 for long however as, moments later Trent Alexander-Arnold played a fantastic long through pass to Mohamed Salah who – having missed an open goal a minute before – made no mistake when clean through on goal, side-footing past Areola with ease.
Two minutes later it was 5-1 when Jones drifted past the ghost of West Ham’s midfield and defend before firing into the net.
GK: Caoimhin Kelleher – 5/10 – He had basically nothing to do, but his distribution was good throughout.
RB: Joe Gomez – 6/10 – Got forward quite well.
CB: Jarrell Quansah – 6/10 – The youngster was turned inside out by Bowen in the lead up to the West Ham goal. Other than that, he did well.
CB: Virgil van Dijk – 6/10 – Probably the easiest game he’ll ever play for Liverpool.
LB: Kostas Tsimkas – 7/10 – Very good at both ends of the park. Really solid outing from the deputy full-back.
CM: Dominik Szoboszlai – 7/10 – Back to his best with a sublime goal to open the scoring in the game.
CM: Wataru Endo – 6/10 – A solid outing from the Japan international.
CM: Curtis Jones – 9/10 – Scored a lovely, vitally important, goal to make it 2-0 in the second half, and then added the cherry on top of the cake with his second goal that made it 5-1. Worked his socked off in the middle of the park too.
RW: Harvey Elliott – 8/10 – Liverpool’s most lively attacking player. The youngster made the most of his chance to start a game.
ST: Cody Gakpo – 7/10 – Missed a glorious chance to make it 2-0 in the first half, but got his much-needed goal in the second half.
LW: Darwin Nunez – 7/10 – You never really know what you’re going to get from Nunez. At the weekend Klopp got a disasterclass, on Wednesday night he got a fantastic assist and generally very good outing from the Uruguayan.
Substitutes
SUB: Ibrahima Konate (60′ for Van Dijk) – 7/10 – Bagged an assist after being brought on.
SUB: Mohamed Salah (60′ for Szoboszlai) – 7/10 – Scored another goal…obviously.
SUB: Trent Alexander-Arnold (60′ for Endo) – 7/10 – Drafted into midfield and did a bloody good job in there, setting up Salah’s goal.
SUB: Conor Bradley (69′ for Tsimikas) – 6/10
SUB: Luis Diaz (78′ for Gakpo) – N/A
Manager – Jurgen Klopp – 8/10 – His team were fantastic, with players like Jones and Elliott stepping up to give the manager some real selection headaches heading into the weekend.
GK: Alphonse Areola – 3/10 – He conceded five. Which is bad.
RB: Vladimir Coufal – 3/10 – Couldn’t deal with Nunez’s energy.
CB: Konstantinos Mavropanos – 3/10 – Dropped off way to much every time Liverpool were on the attack.
CB: Angelo Ogbonna – 3/10 – Looked his age on Wednesday.
LB: Ben Johnson – 2/10 – Ran ragged by Elliott, and should’ve closed down Szoboszlai in the lead up to the opening goal.
DM: Tomas Soucek – 2/10 – He didn’t compete well enough in the middle of the park. To say the very least.
DM: Edson Alvarez – 3/10 – Off the boil on the night.
AM: Pablo Fornals – 3/10 – Honestly, you wouldn’t have known he was on the pitch.
RW: Mohammed Kudus – 3/10 – He didn’t get involved much.
ST: Jarrod Bowen – 6/10 – Barely touched the ball on Wednesday evening, but still scored a great goal.
LW: Said Benrahma – 3/10 – His only notable contribution was losing the ball in the lead up to the opening goal.
Substitutes
SUB: Lucas Paqueta (57′ for Benrahma) – 5/10
SUB: James Ward-Prowse (73′ for Kudus) – 5/10
SUB: Thilo Kehrer (73′ for Coufal) – 5/10
SUB: Danny Ings (81′ for Alvarez) – N/A
Manager – David Moyes – 4/10 – His team were hopeless on Wednesday, with his rotation options simply not doing enough.
Man of the match: Curtis Jones (Liverpool)
