“Wembley, Wembley. We’re the Greatest Team in Europe and We’re Going to Wembley”
Liverpool 4 Tottenham 0, 6th February 2025
LIVERPOOL 4 (Gakpo 34, Salah 51, Szoboszlai 75, van Dijk 80)
TOTTENHAM 0
Liverpool win 4–1 on aggregate
Well last evening was as easy and straight forward as I hoped it would be, Tottenham were reassuringly woeful, the Reds have booked their first of hopefully three trips to Wembley this season and come March and barring the “Magic of the FA Cup” striking at lowly Plymouth Argyle this Sunday, Arne Slot’s Liverpool will enter the month of March top (or as near as damn it) of the Premier League, still in every competition they entered at the beginning of the season and with a mid-month date with Newcastle United at Wembley for the destination of that beautiful silver three-handled Georgian-style urn and title of 2025’s Carabao League Cup winners.
First things last, Tottenham were awful, Richarlison’s early injury merely added to their woes in this department and after desperately trying to cling onto their 1–0 1st leg lead by turning the game into a bitty, niggly and ugly affair for 20 minutes, folded soon thereafter and had Son Heung-min not rattled the Reds crossbar on 77 minutes they wouldn’t have registered a single shot on the Liverpool goal. Quixotically in today’s statistics driven modern game even this didn’t count as a shot on target and put simply, Reds goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher didn’t have a single shot to save or a reason to dirty his gloves.
On the other side of the League Cup football, Liverpool were magnificent with wave after continual wave of free flowing attacking football and after Dominik Szoboszlai’s disallowed goal on 29 minutes were finally rewarded with the lead through Cody Gakpo’s volley 6 minutes later and 6 minutes into the second half, Mo Salah’s penalty signalled the beginnings of the songs of Semi-Final victory around the fields of Anfield Road. The Reds third goal last evening epitomised both their performance and Arne Slot’s team as a whole this season: Alexis Mac Allister striding through midfield before a pinpoint pass to a sprinting Conor Bradley and an immediate simple inside pass to a similarly marauding forward Dominik Szoboszlai who took a first touch with his left foot and whilst still not breaking stride, slid the ball firmly past Antonín Kinský in the Tottenham goal with his right. A handful of seconds and six total touches of the ball was all it took from Mac Allister to Bradley to Szoboszlai and a deserved goal for the Hungarian captain and a game sealing, Wembley sealing, victory. A fourth goal followed 5 minutes later from the Reds imperious skipper Virgil van Dijk to cap yet another impressive performance from the Dutchman and which no doubt brought back memories of his League Cup Final winning goal at Wembley exactly 12 months ago, for Newcastle will be facing the holders of that beautiful three-handled Georgian-style urn (and object of my childish affections for over four decades now) and barring the bubble bursting spectacularly, a team all in Mighty Red in the mightiest of form.
He may not have scored last evening but Darwin Núñez was his usual chaos magic creating pest up front. Cody Gakpo did score (again) as well as hitting the outside of Tottenham’s far post on 63 minutes. Mo Salah scored (again) and yet he too hit the frame of the Tottenham goal and their crossbar on 43 minutes and for a hat-trick of near misses, the ever impressive Ryan Gravenberch smashed a beauty of a long range drive against the post on 73 minutes. Throw into the mix a disallowed goal and wave after wave of attacking intent that saw the Reds rack up 26 shots on goal with 10 on target, this was as one-sided a Semi-Final as you could wish to see or indeed dare hope for.
“Wembley, Wembley. We’re the Greatest Team in Europe and we’re going to Wembley”.
Arne’s Afterword
“Our performance today was something that pleased me most. Reaching a final should always be special, even for this club. This club is used to playing finals, but still then we are working very hard every single day to try to improve players — and the players want to improve themselves every single day — but we are also in this business to play finals. We already know how difficult the final is going to be because we faced Newcastle already and they were very impressive yesterday as well. But many games to be played before this final and this is where our focus should be at”.
“For us to be so aggressive without the ball that it took them 80 minutes before they had their first shot on target, it doesn’t tell you anything about Tottenham that should tell you a lot about our work-rate without the ball. That’s what stood out for me. To play against a team that is so good in creating chances, only conceding one shot is, in the end, a good accomplishment”.
Thanks for reading. I pen my thoughts on every Liverpool game and in recent seasons, with the addition of numerous pieces of retro writing on Reds games of the past, I’ve curated and created the following two self-published books:
"A final word from The Boss" - link to Amazon
"Chasing the Impossible and a Sword of Damocles" - link to Amazon
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.
Whilst you’re here I may as well brag about the release of my two recently self-published books. Both are free to read if you subscribe to Amazon Kindle “Unlimited” or reasonably priced in both paperback and hardback. Go on, treat yourself or a loved one and help out an Indie Author! Buy the books if you’re financially able to.
We HAVE to keep the spirit of reading books alive and well.
Thanks.
"still life, with gooseberry" - link to Amazon
"Rasputin and Raspberry Jam" - link to Amazon
The main reason I know about Tottenham is the fact that supporter Dave Clark started his eponymous rock group as a fund-raising effort for them.