Carabao Cup draw LIVE: Semi-final ties revealed as Liverpool, Chelsea and Tottenham join Arsenal
Follow the draw live at the conclusion of tonight’s three remaining quarter-final ties
Liverpool fought back against Leicester to win 5-4 on penalties and reach the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup in incredible fashion.
Second-choice goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher saved two penalties in the shoot-out as Liverpool, joint record winners in the competition with eight, reached their 18th League Cup semi.
Substitute Diogo Jota struck the winning spot-kick - having come off the bench to score - but the real hero was Takumi Minamino who made it 3-3 with seconds remaining of six added minutes.
Tottenham boosted hopes of ending a 14-year trophy drought by edging out West Ham 2-1 to make the last four.
Spurs’ last silverware came in this competition in 2008 and Steven Bergwijn combined with Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg to fire them ahead after 29 minutes.
Tottenham’s lead only lasted three minutes as Eric Dier’s poor clearance gave Nikola Vlasic possession in a dangerous area. Vlasic’s shot fell to Jarrod Bowen whose brilliant control and drag back gave him the space to beat Dier and equalise with a low shot. Parity lasted just two minutes, however, as Lucas Moura netted the decisive goal for Spurs from Bergwijn’s pull-back.
Chelsea scored twice late on to beat west London neighbours Brentford 2-0.
Bees defender Pontus Jansson put through his own goal 10 minutes from time to give Chelsea the lead. The Blues secured safe passage into their first semi-final in the competition for three years five minutes later. Christian Pulisic was brought down by Alvaro Fernandez and substitute Jorginho tucked away the penalty with ease.
Liverpool vs Leicester: Leicester confident they can add Carabao Cup to FA Cup win, says Wilfred Ndidi
Wilfred Ndidi insists lifting the FA Cup gives Leicester City confidence they can repeat that success in the Carabao Cup this season.
The Foxes won the FA Cup for the first time in their history in May, defeating Chelsea 1-0 at Wembley courtesy of Youri Tielemans’ superb second-half strike.
Leicester have won England’s other domestic cup competition three times, but not since 2000, and face Liverpool at Anfield on Wednesday night for a place in the semi-finals.
Leicester confident they can add Carabao Cup to FA Cup win, says Wilfred Ndidi
The midfielder is in bullish mood ahead of the quarter-final trip to Liverpool
Liverpool vs Leicester: Ndidi on Foxes’ belief
When asked whether he thought Leicester could go on a win the Carabao Cup this season Wilfred Ndidi threw it back to last season’s FA Cup which saw Leicester defeat Chelsea 1-0 in the final to lift the trophy. Ndidi says that victory gives his teammates confidence that they can go on and repeat the feat this year, albeit in a different competition. He said:
It gives us this mindset that it is achievable, it is possible, no matter the team you are playing,
“It is really possible. The confidence is here. When you think back to that amazing feeling of winning the FA Cup, it is something we have in our minds that we can achieve things together as a group.
“We’ve done it and it we can still do it. We’ve done it before and we can do it. It all depends on us to actually be at our best in every single game.”
Liverpool vs Leicester: Williams on the wing
Perhaps the most eyebrow raising inclusion for Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool side is the inclusion of Neco Williams. When he has featured for the reds the 20-year-old is usually employed in his customary right-back role but tonight he’ll take up Mo Salah’s slot on the right wing with Roberto Firmino through the middle and Takumi Minamino on the left. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.
Liverpool vs Leicester: Lijnders on Liverpool’s desire for trophies
Pep Lijnders says that you only need to look at one of Liverpool’s training sessions to see how much the players want to win trophies and admits that their focus is full on tonight’s game and the chance to reach the Carabao Cup semi-finals. He said:
First of all, you have to watch one of our training sessions! That will take the greed question away because they train every time as if it’s a final.
“They can make even a simple rondo very competitive. We have a squad full of personalities, we have a squad full of boys who still dream. Even say, James Milner, who is 35, he still dreams of winning prizes.
“Of course there’s an opportunity to reach the semi-final and we know this. If you want to be a proper Liverpool legend you need to win cups as well – national cups, I mean. We all know how big the FA Cup is and that we want to win this cup as well. But we don’t look further than this game.”
Liverpool vs Leicester: Head-to-head
Liverpool have failed to score against Leicester in only two of the last 26 meetings at Anfield. Those matches were successive Premier League games back in April 1999 and May 2000.
Out of the 115 matches played between the sides, across all competitions, only seven games have ended in goalless draws meaning you should expect somes goals tonight.
The last time these teams met Leicester defeated Liverpool 3-1 back in February 2021 ending a seven game winless streak against the Reds. Before Leicester’s last victory over Liverpool came in September 2017 when they won 2-0 in the Carabao Cup.
Liverpool vs Leicester: Jordan Henderson accuses Premier League of ‘not taking player welfare seriously’
Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson is concerned that player welfare is not being taken seriously enough.
The Premier League announced on Monday its intention to continue with the scheduled matches over the Christmas period, even though there were 90 confirmed coronavirus cases among players and staff recorded last week.
A shareholders’ meeting which involved representatives from all 20 clubs came to a collective decision to carry on with the campaign as planned, despite six of the 10 games last weekend being off due to Covid outbreaks.
Jordan Henderson accuses Premier League of ‘not taking player welfare seriously’
There were 90 confirmed coronavirus cases among Premier League players and staff recorded last week
Liverpool vs Leicester: Ndidi on dealing with Covid
Leicester City haven’t played a competitive game since December 12th as the club has been dealing with the ongoing coronavirus outbreak amongst Premier League clubs. They have had two league matches called off and Wilfred Ndidi says dealing with the rising cases has been tough:
It’s been difficult because we haven’t really had time to train as a group.
"We have to follow the protocol and it’s been difficult because we haven’t been together as a group. We’ve been training individually because of Covid-19, but we will just see what comes."
Liverpool vs Leicester: Team changes
As expected Jurgen Klopp makes a whole bunch of changes to the Liverpool starting XI. Tyler Morton is the only player to remain in the team from the XI that started against Tottenham at the weekend. First teamers, Jordan Henderson, Joe Gomez, Kostas Tsimikas, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Roberto Firmino provide the experience as Klopp brings in some of the youngsters. Caoimhin Kelleher is reliable in goal with Conor Bradley and Billy Koumetio in defence.
Brendan Rodgers has played it safer making only three changes from Leicester’s last game. Caglar Soyuncu is fit enough to start and partners Wilfred Ndidi at centre-back with Ricardo Peirera and Luke Thomas either side of them. Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall keeps his place in midfield alongside Youri Tielemans and Boubakary Soumare whilst Patson Daka plays with James Maddison and the returning Jamie Vardy up top. Jonny Evans, Harvey Barnes and Timothy Castagne drop out.
Liverpool vs Leicester: Line-ups
Liverpool XI: Kelleher, Bradley, Koumetio, Gomez, Tsimikas, Morton, Henderson, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Williams, Minamino, Firmino
Leicester XI: Schmeichel, Ricardo, Ndidi, Soyuncu, Thomas, Tielemans, Soumare, Dewsbury-Hall, Maddison, Daka, Vardy
Liverpool vs Leicester: Injuries and absentees
Liverpool remain without Virgil van Dijk, Fabinho and Curtis Jones fortonight’s game at Anfield as they are still isolating after positive Covid-19 tests.
Divock Origi is also out through injury.
Leicester have big problems as centre-backs Jonny Evans, Caglar Soyuncu, Jannik Vestergaard, Wesley Fofana and Filip Benkovic all look likely to miss out.
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