Liverpool overpowered West Ham United in the Carabao Cup quarter-finals to earn a place in the semi-finals of the competition.
Goals from Dominik Szoboszlai, Cody Gakpo, Mohamed Salah and a brace from Curtis Jones secured a deserving 5-1 win for the Reds on the night, with Jarrod Bowen getting a consolation goal with West Ham’s only shot on target of the game.
Liverpool thoroughly dominated the opening exchanges of the game at Anfield, retaining possession in and around West Ham’s for large periods.
The Reds saw two sighters from Cody Gakpo and Harvey Elliott drift narrowly wide of the post in the opening 15 minutes, before they eventually got their deserved opener in the 27th minute.
Said goal would come courtesy of Dominik Szoboszlai who took full advantage of West Ham’s defence dropping off to canon a stunning effort into the bottom left corner of the net from fully 25 yards out.
It was so nearly 2-0 on the stroke of half-time when Elliott curled a beautiful cross into the West Ham penalty area.
Cody Gakpo rose highest at the near post to latch onto ball, however he was unable to direct his subsequent header goalward – seeing the ball spin narrowly wide of the foot of the post instead.
The home side did eventually get their second goal at the start of the second half through Curtis Jones.
The midfielder was played through on the left-hand side of the penalty area by Darwin Nunez and, from an extremely tight angle, Jones was able to squeeze the ball under Alphonse Areola and into the net.
Cody Gakpo was next to get in on the goalscoring action for Liverpool, making it 3-0 in the 70th minute.
The Dutch international, like Szoboszlai did in the first half, capitalised on West Ham’s backline dropping off to fire an effort into the bottom corner from outside of the box.
Surprisingly, and wholly against the run of play, West Ham managed to get a goal back in the final 15 minutes through their star man Jarrod Bowen.
The forward had barely touched the ball all game, but still was able to get in on the scoring action when he cut in from the right and curled brilliantly into the far right corner.
It wasn’t 3-1 for long however as, moments later Trent Alexander-Arnold played a fantastic long through pass to Mohamed Salah who – having missed an open goal a minute before – made no mistake when clean through on goal, side-footing past Areola with ease.
Two minutes later it was 5-1 when Jones drifted past the ghost of West Ham’s midfield and defend before firing into the net.
