Daniel’s Debrief: Liverpool 5-1 West Ham

For the first time in what feels like forever but is actually just a matter of a few weeks, football seemed to come easy to the Reds there.

They seemed to enjoy it and it didn’t seem to be hard work - though they did work hard - to play well.

They are fluid and fluent and they make the ball do the work, like all good sides do.

Now, not all of the problems of the last few weeks have been solved there, of course not, and you have to caveat the praise slightly with the note that West Ham are abysmal on the night and lose the likes of Lucas Paqueta, Emerson Palmieri, James Ward-Prowse and Kurt Zouma to sickness before the game.

But, you can only beat what’s in front of you and Liverpool never look like failing to do so. They are efficient and ruthless and competitive, and for their faults this season (and there have been some), you can’t accuse them of not being competitive.

2nd in the league. Last 16 of the Europa. Semis of the League Cup.

Now, progress into the last four here means they may choose to write the FA Cup game at the Emirates off and I would be a backer of this decision.

What you can’t level at the manager is him not wanting it. Apart from Alisson Becker, every single first team player who is fit plays a part here and even with the game sewn up, he’s bringing on Luis Diaz.

He has to strike the balance between the need for rest and the need to play into form and what he does smartly is get the best of both worlds.

The likes of Darwin Nunez and Dominik Szoboszlai have their best games in a while, but Nunez is one of probably only two players likely to start at the weekend that do the full 90 here.

Jurgen Klopp wants this competition won and recognises that with a semi-final against Fulham and a final against either Championship Middlesbrough or an average Chelsea team, it’s about as open a goal as you can get.

The Premier League and the Europa League are the two we want most, but you can’t pick and choose your trophies and the thing that Klopp’s incredible Liverpool era is missing is a stacking of silverware.

We’ve won everything under him - once. This represents a chance to get a second League Cup - the first time he’d have won a trophy twice at Liverpool.

The intensity and the counter-pressing is there from the off and Szoboszlai and Curtis Jones in particular excel in this area. They force West Ham into unforced errors and this facilitates Wataru Endo to pick up the pieces and move the ball along.

Endo’s use of the ball is so tidy and helpful, he completes 27/28 passes on the night, with seven progressive passes. He’s had some really good games lately, and has got to grips with the pace of the game in England.

He breaks up attacks really well and never seems to be badly out of position, and is becoming more effective in the tackle.

Endo is one of our most in-form players right now and another is Kostas Tsimikas, who has another solid night and is more connected with his team-mates this time around.

The fact that Endo and Tsimikas are both withdrawn is a credit to them that Klopp wants them ready for the big one on Saturday.

Joe Gomez is absolutely superb at right-back and gets up and down the flank like nobody’s business. He hardly inverts all game but manages to support the attack constantly and is getting closer and closer to that elusive first goal.

His pace is still among the best in the squad and he shows that a few times tonight, with Said Benrahma (who has become a bit of an anti-hero for West Ham fans) hardly getting any change out him.

There’s a conversation to be had about Gomez quietly being in Liverpool’s top five performers this season. He’s been so solid across three positions and even tonight finishes the game at left-back. We look a better team with Gomez on the pitch recently.

The full-backs are interesting tonight and by that I don’t necessarily mean personnel, but more tactics and roles. Gomez and Tsimikas perform the flying full-back jobs that Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson were so famed for from 2017-2022.

There was no inversion at all, they hogged the touchline and provided so much natural width.

What flying full-backs also do is allow the attackers and the two eights to stay central and swarm that middle area in pressing and second ball situations.

It allows the wingers to play as inside forwards rather than having to come wide constantly and also provide an overlap for them. 

We have missed this. Athletic, flying full-backs facilitate some of the signatures of classic Klopp football.

I get the desire to have Alexander-Arnold in the middle of the park, I really do, but I think we’ve reached a point now where he either needs to play right-back or play in central midfield. Because we see here the fluency that Liverpool have when they operate with genuine full-backs on either side.

And the fact that neither were Liverpool’s first-choice full-backs further underlines the point that regardless of a personnel, this is a tactic that works for Klopp teams.

It’s no coincidence that there is so much fluidity across the park the first time we play with natural full-backs all season.

With regards to Alexander-Arnold, for the first time now I genuinely think his long-term future is in midfield. Whether that means we sign a right-back in one of the next few windows or deploy Gomez there, it does feel like that’s the way home long-term. 

He comes on at six, Alexander-Arnold, and sets up two goals, with a delicious pass to Mohamed Salah for his and aiding a slaloming run from Curtis Jones soon after.

The scoring is actually opened in the first half and comes at the end of a period of Liverpool dominance. Jarell Quansah wins the ball from Benrahma and Szoboszlai unleashes one of his straight strikes into the opposite corner.

The direction he gets on this is so impressive and it bounces at such an awkward point for Alphonse Areola. 

He plays the best he’s played in a while, Szoboszlai, and the interplay between he and Harvey Elliott is a big factor in Liverpool’s potency down the right flank early on in the game. Time and time again they switch between right wing and midfield and support one another.

Elliott gets a rare game on the wing here but so much of his good work is done in the half-space. He’s fantastic with the ball at his feet and while he’s still not had a league start this season, his contribution to the season as a whole has been significant, even if large parts of that have been from the bench.

What a night Jones has. He runs the midfield so well, his counter-pressing is brilliant and he provides so much balance and control in the centre of the pitch.

The performance he puts in has surely played him into a starting berth for Saturday. His second goal will undoubtedly steal the headlines.

It’s sumptuous, really. His slaloming run is tremendous to watch and his close control is remarkable in this instance, capped off with such a calm finish into the far corner.

I’ve long considered Jones to be one of the highest in terms of technical ability at the club and this was another example of it. It’s a beautiful solo goal and while his Everton one from 2020 will probably always be the most famous, I think this is his best for the club so far.

His first, Areola will be disappointed with, getting beaten from such a tight angle. But, the interplay between Jones and Nunez is excellent here. A give-and-go between midfielder and winger and again, what’s so impressive about Jones is the calmness and the composure. As he’s arriving in the box, he has a look up to see if the cutback is on, realises it’s not, and then shoots.

It’s one of his best ever Liverpool performances.

I think our best football this season has been with a midfield of Alexis Mac Allister, Szoboszlai and Jones and while the former isn’t currently available, as well as Thiago, Jones has played himself into form here after a few sticky games in his recent outings.

I’m not sure why it is but I still maintain that he is criminally underrated.

Another academy product who excels is Quansah. Perhaps you’d say he doesn’t do great for the Jarrod Bowen goal, he lets him go a little easily but on the whole, it’s another very impressive performance from the centre-back.

I think back to the last time a young centre-back was dropped into a League Cup quarter-final and it’s Billy Koumetio against Leicester in 2021 and he looks miles out of his depth that night.

Quansah is the best and most natural defender we’ve produced in some time. I do think he prefers the left side, and he has to play on the right here to accommodate Virgil Van Dijk, who is faultless again, but that’s further credit to Quansah.

Worth a mention at this point that the Bowen goal is a marvellous strike and there’s nothing that Caoimhin Kelleher could’ve done about it. He’s some player, is Bowen.

Van Dijk is one of the three taken off on the hour mark and one of Konate’s involvements is to set up the third goal after a powerful dribble which finds Cody Gakpo. He’s done well in his last few games, Konate.

Gakpo fires home from distance and hes scored in all three rounds of the competition so far. Once again, he was very elusive for much of the night and I did feel a bit underwhelmed with him.

But, it’s a clinical finish and he’s got seven goals this season which equal with Nunez and two better than Diaz. 

Nunez’s performance is his best in a while. Deployed on the left wing, he is involved all night and it’s a smarter showing than we’ve seen from him recently. Nunez is most dangerous in space and he will find it far more often on the left than up front, particularly if the full-backs operate as they do here.

For Arsenal, I'd go Salah-Gakpo-Nunez.

Diaz does come on and spends some time up front, which may be something they want to look at, but I’d be surprised if he’s done enough to warrant a start against Arsenal.

Salah gets his goal a minute after missing a sitter when a fine Nunez effort had come back off the post and he doesn’t realise how much time he’s got to work with. It’s some pass from Alexander-Arnold and Salah finishes into the opposite corner with his left foot - it’s a similar goal to his ones against United in 2020 and Everton in 2021.

What’s impressive throughout is the ease with which Liverpool control and win this game. West Ham don’t have a single shot in the first half and only have two all game.

Again, it’s worth saying that the wrongs of Sunday and the last few weeks (performances, not results) haven’t necessarily been righted here, and it’s a West Ham team that fall apart at the seams and put in a pretty dire showing.

But, it’s a major step in the direction for individuals, for the team and for tactics.

Liverpool should win this competition now. Fulham in the semi-finals. They’re going well and scoring at a rate of knots recently and were unlucky not to get something at Anfield a few weeks ago.

We’ll be without Salah or Endo for both legs of the semi-finals due to the AFCON and the Asian Cup but should have a much cleaner bill of health in the rest of the squad.

You won’t get a better chance to win a trophy as easily as what we're presented with here. 

A night of positives ahead of a huge one on Saturday. 

Daniel