Many of the domestic cups throughout Europe are coming to a close soon, including England’s League Cup, known as the “Carabao Cup” for sponsorship purposes. The four semi-finalists are Arsenal, Newcastle, Tottenham, and Liverpool.

Arsenal had a fairly easy draw to make it to the semifinal, having to beat Bolton Wanderers, Preston North End, and Crystal Palace to book a berth in the semifinal against Newcastle. The Geordies made it past Nottingham Forest, AFC Wimbledon, Chelsea, and Brentford. The first leg, held at the Emirates, involved a lot of wasteful shooting from the Gunners, some clinical Newcastle counter-attacking, and… Mikel Arteta blaming the ball?

After Anthony Gordon and Alexander Isak both punished Arsenal en route to a 2-0 away win for Newcastle, the talking point of Arteta’s press conference were his comments on how the Carabao Cup ball is very different from the Premier League or Champions League ball. I get it Mikel, you’re a glass half full kind of guy. If I saw my team miss tens of shots over the crossbar, I might want to blame the ball too. He might’ve forgotten that Newcastle was playing with the same ball though.

Newcastle are set up well for the return leg at Saint James’ Park in a month’s time.

On the other side of the draw, Spurs had to beat Coventry City, Manchester City, and then Manchester United, to set up a semi-final against top-of-the-league Liverpool. Pretty easy draw, right? The Red’s cruised past West Ham, Brighton, and Southampton to make it to this semi-final. The first leg was held at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium. Spurs have had a glut of injuries over the past month, including the first choice GK, LB, and both CB’s. 18 year old Archie Gray has been filling in at centreback and has done a very solid job to be fair, and it was Radu Dragusin partnering Gray in the Spurs backline today. There was an early scare in the match, with Rodrigo Bentancur inexplicably collapsing to the pitch while attempting to head a ball in from the corner. It was unclear what exactly happened, but wishing Bentancur a speedy recovery.

New signing Antonin Kinsky started in net for Spurs and looked very confident, commanding his box and making several good saves. Archie Gray had one of his best performances at CB, frequently winning the ball back and then driving forward before setting up a teammate. Dominic Solanke appeared to put Spurs up 1-0 in the 77th minute, before VAR disallowed it by the slimmest of margins. I’m sure the ref was happy that the FA decided to trial a new system where VAR decisions are communicated to the crowd, leaving him personally letting the Spurs fans know the goal wouldn’t stand. Not too long after, Solanke bullies Konaté off of a long ball, holds it up before laying it off to Lucas Bergvall to smash past Alisson to give Spurs the lead. Liverpool fans will argue Bergvall should’ve been sent off for a 2nd yellow card, but the balancing factor is Bergvall’s first yellow card was never a yellow, so in the end there can be no real complaints.

Liverpool sent everything they had for the final few minutes and stoppage time, but couldn’t break through Antonin Kinsky, who won MOTM with a stellar debut performance. Next month will be the second leg at Anfield, with Spurs holding a 1-0 lead going into it.

Cheers,

LM