Carabao Cup Quarter Final Home Liverpool Lost 1 – 2
A momentous few days to start the week: Mishal Hussain leaving Radio 4’s Today programme (voluntarily) and Russell Martin departing St. Mary’s (definitely pushed). Simon Rusk had the job of picking a side to face Liverpool and opted for an uncomplicated (he’d only had a couple of days) and unambitious (it was Liverpool, albeit their almost second string Carabao Cup XI) 5-4-1 formation. Missing were Armstrong, who somehow managed to get suspended without getting near the ball very often, and Walker-Peters, who has never featured in this competition in 2024. It began OK and Dibling had been expected to do more with his finish from a nice breakaway move, but it’s been that way before, and once again misfortune and poor decision making was our downfall: on 24 minutes, a long clearance out of defence didn’t look like causing problems until Bednarek, no doubt based on past experience, felt he couldn’t let the ball go past him but only managed a touch that sent it straight into the path of Núñez whose job was made easy when McCarthy decided to retreat rather than attack the situation. A few minutes later, another typical Southampton goal conceded: Gakpo passing to the feet of Elliott who more or less sidefooted home, despite so many static defenders in the vicinity. A similar move almost brought a third goal but McCarthy saved well so Saints were still in sight at the break. Two changes for the visitors at half time weren’t as consequential as Tottenham withdrawing Son so it was still a bit of a surprise when Saints were suddenly only one adrift: there was an element of fortune about it, but we were due a bit of that and there was a lot Archer had to do off his own bat to take advantage – and he did it superbly with a fine curling shot. That was just before the hour, our regular substitution time, so Sugawara came on immediately, and almost with immediate impact when Archer met his cross truly and forced a dramatic save off Kelleher’s elbow – the subsequent loose ball wouldn’t quite go to a striped shirt. There was now a bit of belief about the place, and the Rusk substitutions seemed to have a bit of purpose about them too, including re-uniting Nathan Jones’ dream partnership of Sulemana and Onuachu – indeed a Sulemana cross almost fell for Tall Paul but it was a bit behind him and the execution was more comical than clinical. It’s also true that Liverpool continued to look dangerous and twice Harwood-Bellis rescued us from goal-bound shots by Chiesa. It wasn’t until added time when a final clear opportunity presented itself, only Fernandes stumbled under Quansah’s challenge; my reaction was to agree with the referee’s view that our player had gone down too easily and unnecessarily, and without VAR, that was that – but TV evidence subsequently revealed a clear foul… but outside the penalty area (still a sending off though!). Time to concentrate on the league instead… hang on, that’s a waste of time – bring on Swansea in the proper cup.
Three LSSC Man of the Match candidates to choose from:
6. Taylor Harwood-Bellis, back to form after a dodgy few games since playing for England.
18. Mateus Fernandes. Was it a cynical foul that denied him a dramatic equaliser?
19. Cameron Archer for a very good goal, and close to a second.
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