The domestic cups have been going downhill for a while now, the Carabao cup is a waste of time in all honesty, not even the lower league teams seem to care about progressing in it anymore. Saw Bournemouth near enough lined up with a complete reserve team this season. The money teams get for making it through the rounds and winning it just isn't worth it, teams would much rather focus on the league instead. In fact the bonuses players will get for making it through or winning the competition is probably higher than the prize money.
As for us, I couldn't care less about this competition, the way they treated us and expected us to play our tie whilst being in Qatar was a complete joke, they made no attempt at all to try and help us out so we would have a fair crack at the game. Was a complete piss take, which is probably why Klopp doesn't even bother doing the interviews for these games anymore.
This competition is on it's last legs, it wont be long until it's scrapped because financially it just isn't worth it and when you see teams from the lower leagues not even taking it seriously anymore, it just emphasises the point further.
I kind of agree 7kk7, however, without actually admitting it I think Jürgen uses it to bleed the younger lads in and gives them a taste of what is expected, we seen how in ‘19’ we inadvertently fielded that youth side because of our commitment in Qatar, as it turned out it became quite a fillip in that regard, so whilst as a club we enter it each season it makes sense to then use it to our advantage to integrate a few younger lads, shake the rust out of injury returnee’s, or simply to experiment with square pegs in round holes and see how it fares,
If we go out early no one really bats a eyelid, but if we progress further and further we can take it more seriously and at the same time offers more experience to those younger players, to me it’s a win win as far as the club is concerned and F**k what anyone else thinks, Liverpool FC enter competition’s in the hope that we eventually win them, we don’t enter any competition to deliberately lose irrespective of where said competition lies priority wise,
Anyhoo that said, I’d go with thus………
Kelleher
Neco Konate Matip Kostas
Gomez
Jones Keita
Gordon Minamino
Origi
Bench: Adrian, Bradley, Milner, Oxlade, Phillips, Salah, Mane, Musialowski
Not sure if Neco is available tbh, might have to alter slightly and use young Connor instead , and I’d give Joe a go as the DM, I think he could do a decent enough job as a temporary Fabinho replacement, so he’s my square peg in a roundish hole, Curtis, Naby, Divock and Taki all need pitch time and my golden nugget is Kaide Gordon, feel slightly sorry for the Ox, he needs pitch time too but on this occasion I want to see Jones & Naby in the engine room, like I mentioned above this is great opportunity to experiment and give one or two kids a taste of first team action but retain a bit of security off the bench.
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