Few do themselves any favours.

Ah well, that’s our League Cup dreams ended for another season. If only we had bigger fish to fry…

The game, in a nutshell, was one by the better team on the night, though it might not be too churlish to say that the least worst side nicked it as the quality of football, especially in the first half, left much to be desired.

It wasn’t easy to see from where Poch expected a goal to come given the lineup he picked and thus the outcome was pretty obvious once Sturridge scored early on. We huffed and puffed but Liverpool’s sheer size when we went forward invariably halted us, whilst their superior speed when we defended meant that Michel Vorm was regularly called into action. I mention the home team’s physical stature not because they were giants, but only to emphasise that Janssen aside, we were lightweight. Onomah, Winks, Carroll and NKoudou. I mention their speed as, at the risk of stating the bleedin’ obvious, they were far quicker than us. Wimmer and Davies were spent spinning time after time, by Origi in particular.

Still, I’m sure the purpose of playing this side was partly to see the players in front of a crowd and in an ‘important’ game (as well as to rest the first team) so Pochettino will have taken much from it, whilst those fans wondering why Wimmer and NKoudou aren’t being given first team opportunities will have seen why. Both were poor.

Harry Winks was the best of the newbies, Carter-Vickers also doing ok.

I might be alone in this, but I’d say that Erik Lamela’s noteworthy cameo in the number ten position after being subbed on for the last quarter of the game was probably our biggest plus point of the evening. It’s not the first time his industry and mosquito like busy-ness have caused problems for the opposition in that position. He may have given Poch food for thought.

I don’t think many people expected anything other than what occurred tonight, though hopes would’ve been raised slightly when the Liverpool starting XI was seen. Too many of our players weren’t up to the job though, personally the disappointment in realising that hasn’t compensated for the easing of the pressure on our diary.

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