How seriously should Liverpool take the Carabao Cup?
So, on Tuesday evening Liverpool travel to Leicester to contest the League Cup third round tie.
Since Sunday, we have seen a big variation in opinion across our fan base as to how to approach the game and the competition as a whole. Now, I doubt too many of you reading this bothered with watching the League Cup draw a month ago. If you did, you’re either living on the other side of the planet or are extremely sad.
The likelihood is, similarly to me, you got up the next morning and saw the fixture on twitter. And your reaction was probably one of disappointment when you saw the draw. Leicester away isn’t a Manchester United, for example, which you can get excited for. Equally, it isn’t a walk in the park where we can let all the big names watch it on TV and enjoy seeing what some of the fringe players have to offer.
So just how seriously should we be doing taking it? Well, there are two sides to the decision.
Liverpool have won one trophy in 11 years. It isn’t nice to be reminded of and it certainly isn’t a good enough for a club of our magnitude. Yes, we all remember the ownership struggle and the Hodgson era and there was clearly a huge rebuilding project to be done as a consequence of that. However, since then, Dalglish and Klopp have lost three finals between them and Brendan Rodgers ought to have something to show other than narrowly missing out on a title from one of the best Liverpool sides I’ve seen in my lifetime.
So it’s about time we added some more silverware to the trophy cabinet and to be honest, the League Cup is our best chance of doing so. A title run can’t be ruled out but given the fragility of our defence already shown, can we realistically back ourselves to pick up more points over 38 matches than teams like Manchester City?
We have an incredible record against the top sides but are we really going to throw away a very winnable trophy to back ourselves against the likes of Real Madrid over two legs in the Champions League? The FA Cup is also a great opportunity for us but there are more matches to play to get to the final than there are in the League Cup. And while there is no evidence that there will be a repeat, remember our January collapse last season?
The paragraph above is probably the most negative, pessimistic thing I’ve ever written. Don’t get me wrong, this Liverpool side is easily capable of winning their next eight Premier League matches and being firmly in the title conversation by December.
Mané, Firmino and Salah are capable of outscoring any team in Europe over two legs. But we are talking about probability here and the probability of the Reds winning six domestic games, some of which may be against lower-league opposition or significantly weakened Premier League sides, is much higher than the probability of us winning the league or Champions League. And I’m sure we can all agree that we’re in dire need of a trophy.
Off the back of what I’ve just said, it would seem sensible to go full-strength then? Well, there are plenty of other factors that Jürgen Klopp will be taking into consideration. Despite the classic Sunday League shout of “these lads are earning millions, they should be able to play five games a week,” these Liverpool players are human and like us all, need rest if they’re to be at the top of their game. Never mind the League Cup, Klopp has made plenty of changes for actual Premier League matches which have come after a mid-week European tie.
We have players in our squad who need and are desperate for minutes. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was bought for £40,000,000 – Tuesday night is the perfect chance to let him play in his favourite position of central midfield and see if he can stake a claim for a starting berth. Andy Robertson isn’t first choice left-back and Moreno will probably play the three games after this so why not give Robertson another go seeing as he has hardly let us down so far this year?
Klopp has already confirmed that Grujic will start so it seems a good opportunity to get some minutes into Milner’s legs where he can add some experience to a raw midfield.
I’d go with a midfield diamond like we saw in the 0-4 win over West Ham at the end of last season. Simply because we don’t have too many wide players at our disposal at present, especially if we plan to rest Salah. Coutinho has played there a lot for us but we can all agree he’s at his best centrally. Firmino and Sturridge can play there but are far less effective and I’ve already said how I’d like to see Chamberlain in a midfield role.
Another benefit of that particular formation is that it would allow us to play Daniel Sturridge and Dominic Solanke, who showed a tremendous amount of potential in pre-season up, front.
To wrap this up then, I asked the question at the start: How seriously should we be taking the League Cup? The answer for me is as seriously as we can take it without jeopardising our league and Champions League form. Let’s give the likes of Chamberlain, Grujic, Milner and Solanke a run out but let’s not, for example, give Flanagan 90 minutes just for the sake of it if we’re going to sell him next summer anyway.
A rotated team is good enough to progress to the next round. It gives minutes the players who need a game and doesn’t affect the weekend’s match at all.
This is exactly how we should approach this competition going forward.