In the EFL Cup on Thursday, Liverpool defeated Bournemouth 2-1 to advance to the quarterfinals. These are some of the key talking points from an impressive game that had a surprising strong side.
KLOPP GOES FIERCE
Against Bournemouth, Jurgen Klopp had an unexpectedly strong Liverpool starting lineup, with Mohamed Salah being the standout player. Despite playing a lot of football lately, Dominik Szoboszlai and Kostas Tsimikas both made an appearance.
It seems that Liverpool plans to compete in the EFL Cup this year, and with good reason. In addition to competing in the UEFA Europa League on a rotating basis, the Reds have a genuine chance of winning it. Every game, there are plenty of players that are not starting.
However, Salah and Tsimikas remain the unanswered questions. Liverpool may want to take it easy on the Egyptian throughout the first half of the season in preparation for his appearance at AFCON early in the following year. Since he is the sole senior left-back, Tsimikas presents a particular challenge. We’re not sure if starting him is required as it runs the danger of burnout or harm.
ANOTHER QUANSAH TEST
Although the teenage defender has played in a good number of games this season, this one stood out from the others. The terrible weather on the south coast presented a fresh obstacle for Liverpool’s defence.
The Reds play with their defenders quite isolated compared to Bournemouth’s more compact shape. The unpredictable ball – both in the air and on the turf – consistently threatened to catch them out. The centre-backs handled it well, which is notable for Jarell Quansah.
He was not at all concerned. In the first half, no player made more passes, although he was comfortable enough to dribble the ball occasionally. This was a good test of his poise, and we believe he passed almost perfectly.
SZOBOSZLAI, RIGHTWISE
On the team sheet, Liverpool’s front three configuration wasn’t totally obvious. As it happened, Dominik Szoboszlai was on the right side, Mohamed Salah was in the centre, and Cody Gakpo was on the left.
He is experienced in this capacity, although we haven’t seen him play it much at Liverpool yet. He played there much of the previous season for RB Leipzig, when he contributed eight assists and six goals from that flank.
We also felt he did a good job there. Although it restricts his ability to cut in and shoot on his usual right, Szoboszlai is so at ease moving in either direction that he was able to create a lot of excellent opportunities for link-ups with Salah and Joe Gomez, who overlapped.
Compared to the left, Salah does not have as much cover from Liverpool on the right. Perhaps over the season, we’ll see a little more of this. Given this evidence, we most likely ought to.
ENDO CONTINUES TO LEARN.
Wataru Endo has had a challenging start to his time at Liverpool, and he also had trouble against Bournemouth. The Japan international showed promise in a few truly good moments, but in the course of an hour, he was also dribbled past three times.
That was too much for your defensive midfielder—that was more than the rest of Liverpool’s starting lineup put together. We can mark this one down as yet another learning experience since, of course, he needs games to help him adapt more quickly.
NUNEZ IS SIMPLY ON FIRE
Here, Darwin came off the bench to score the winner, and boy, was that a winner. But the real story is that the Uruguayan just continues scoring goals, no matter how spectacular the goal was.
This season, he has scored once every 55 minutes in all competitions. It’s just amazing stuff, and Nunez appears to fit right in with this Liverpool team.
Furthermore, he and the crew get along well. Trent Alexander-Arnold was well aware that he might hit the striker with a first-time pass and that something would happen. The secret is that Nunez places himself in advantageous situations and has been consistently profitable this season.