Diogo Jota brace fires Liverpool past Arsenal and into Carabao Cup final to face Chelsea
A match that finally took place, but there was no actual contest. Arsenal, it could be argued, still didn’t really play.
Liverpool reached a fifth cup final of Jurgen Klopp’s time, and the first in this competition in six years, by comfortably beating Mikel Arteta’s side 2-0 in the League Cup semi-final second leg. This one wasn’t about false positives but false advertising. It just wasn’t the game that was billed, and certainly didn’t live up the enjoyable chaos that the competition’s semi-finals often offer.
Arteta’s side clearly have so much promise but also some way to go, as they lost another big game. Liverpool, and especially Diogo Jota, were just too good for them. There was almost an inevitability about that given all the ructions of the last week and how the north London derby was postponed. Arsenal could point to a stretched squad and how Thomas Partey came on just hours after arriving back from the African Cup of Nations, only to be sent off in the aimless final minutes.
That ended up being indicative in another way, as it summed up how Arsenal were always stretching to try and bridge the gap to Liverpool, but Klopp’s side were too good.
A side without Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane just showed Arsenal how it’s done, giving a semi-final occasionally clouded by an acrimonious atmosphere a muted finish.
Perhaps the only question from the entire game was whether Jota intended the finish that effectively settled the contest, or mishit it. It is someway irrelevant to the game, given the end result was a goal either way, but it was a rare moment when Aaron Ramsdale looked culpable.
It’s possible he was unsighted, as Jota weaved his way towards the Arsenal box until he had a mass of bodies diving in from all angles.
Jota went for the finish, hitting a shot low to the right that almost trickled in. Ramsdale had been completely wrong-footed.
Such a slow shot similarly took some of the pace out of the game. Arsenal’s …
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