On Wednesday evening, Spurs welcomed Liverpool to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for the first leg of the 24/25 Carabao Cup semi finals.
For the task at hand, Ange opted for a line up of; Kinsky; Porro, Dragusin, Gray, Spence; Bentancur, Bissouma, Bergvall; Kulusevski, Solanke, Son.
After around six minutes, a cross/shot from Son was diverted goalwards by Dragusin, whose effort was well saved down low to Alisson’s right. Amidst that attack, Bentancur reportedly fainted — with a break in play of nearly ten minutes. Subsequently, Johnson replaced the Uruguayan, with Kulusevski moving into midfield.
Near the halfway stage of the first half, a low cross from Son found Solanke six yards out, but the striker deflected the ball onto his own knee, and the ball went wide. Replays suggest it may have been offside in any case.
Soon after the half hour mark, Bissouma found himself in the book, after a foul on Diogo Jota. From the free-kick, Liverpool had their first opening of the game, but Alexis Mac Allister headed straight at Kinsky when he may have done better.
With a couple of minutes of normal time remaining in the first half, Liverpool sprung a quick break, with Bergvall doing superbly to cut out a low cross into the box. After a whole 11 minutes of stoppage time, the sides went into the break at 0-0.
Just after ten minutes into the second half, Bergvall successfully pressed Alisson, but Porro’s first shot was denied by a Van Dijk block, and on the second attempt, the defender fired wide, having been found by Bergvall again. Huge opportunities wasted.
Midway through the second half, substitute Darwin Nunez had a great chance after being superbly found by Mohamed Salah, but Kinsky made himself big and got in the way of the forward’s effort on goal.
With twenty minutes to go, a raking effort from Trent Alexander-Arnold was cleared off the line by Dragusin. You’re lying if the right-backs goal against Spurs in January 2021 did not play through your mind as he shot.
Just after, Son’s race was run, as he was replaced by Werner — Kulusevski therefore took the captains armband for the remainder of the game
With a little under a quarter of an hour to go, Solanke thought he had put Spurs ahead, after slotting past Alisson through on goal, but he was adjudged to have been offside. Would have counted last round, a shame.
There were five minutes of normal time remaining, when Spurs took the lead. Porro played a ball in behind, which found Solanke, who superbly held the ball off of a strong, fresh, Konate, before perfectly laying the ball off to Bergvall, who swept the ball into the near post. Superb goal. Brilliant finish, and absolutely outstanding centre-forward play from Solanke.
Three minutes into stoppage time, Kinsky had to make another big save from Nunez, denying the forward’s flick towards goal from close range. Really promising debut from the 21-year old goalkeeper.
That would be that. Despite nine minutes of stoppage time, Spurs held on superbly. Sure, there were nerves whenever Liverpool had the ball late on, understandably. Mainly from the part and parcel emotion of being a football fan, however. They weren't really cutting their hosts open. If you were a neutral watching that, you wouldn't have expected an equaliser to come.
What a win, what a team. COYS.