Liverpool 5 West Ham 1 (Carabao Cup)
This was always going to be a difficult tie and an evening in front of Sky made for pretty horrible viewing. Moyes rested Paqueta, Ward-Prowse, Aguerd, Zouma, and Emerson. This was a tie WHU were always likely to lose even with a full-strength side and with Man United and Arsenal coming up there was always going to be some rotation. Though disrupting the back four so much certainly backfired.
Liverpool looked at it from the start with Jones and Elliott busy in midfield and West Ham barely putting together a forward pass. Ominously Liverpool's squad forwards are Gakpo and Nunez. The opener came when Benrahma lost possession, Johnson failed to close down and Szoboslai fired home a long-range screamer. It was a relief to be just one-goal down at the break.
The killer goal came just as Paqueta was preparing to come on. Soucek failed to track Jones and the Liverpool midfielder fired through Areola's legs. The third saw Konate get through the midfield with embarrassing ease and find Gakpo. Mavropanos tried to do one of those silly arms behind the back tackles and the ball went through his legs and into Areola's net.
There was a little hope when Johnson found Bowen with a decent chip, Jarrod cut inside Quansah and curled a great shot into the net. But it got even worse when Mavropanos advanced too far forward and Trent-Alexander played a fine through ball to Salah, who scored with ease having earlier missed the target after Nunez hit the post.
The fifth was very poor indeed with Jones slaloming through the defence and Mavropanos and Ogbonna bamboozled.
Liverpool did play really well. But it was tough on the 5000 travelling fans and proof that a lot of our squad players aren't good enough. Fornals and Benrahma have gone backwards, Mavropanos is raw and Ogbonna and Ings look too old. Our tired squad could do without a 12.30 kick-off on Saturday. Let's hope the rotation brings a better performance against MUFC.
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