Reds pip Arsenal in 10-goal thriller
LIVERPOOL:ANFIELD debutant Curtis Jones scored the winning spotkick as Liverpool beat Arsenal on penalties after an astonishing 5-5 draw to reach the League Cup quarter-finals on Wednesday.
The 18-year-old substitute kept his cool in front of the Kop to send Liverpool through after the hosts had trailed 3-1, 4-2 and 5-4 before a stoppage-time equaliser by Divock Origi. On a crazy evening it looked as though Joe Willock’s screamer had earned Arsenal a memorable victory but Liverpool proved irrepressible as their barnstorming season continued.
Liverpool scored all five of their penalties while fledgling keeper Caoimhin Kelleher, 20, saved from Dani Ceballos.
It was only the second time Liverpool had conceded five at home in the last 66 years. The other occasion was a 6-3 League Cup loss to Arsenal in 2007.
“We can talk about tactics but who cares on a night like this?” Klopp, whose side have dropped only two points in their opening 10 Premier League games, said. “I hoped for the boys they would have a game to remember. What they did tonight, I lost it really. If you don’t win nobody remembers it in three years, if it works out the boys will remember it forever.”
Defeat was a bitter one for Arsenal manager Unai Emery whose decision to give Mesut Ozil only his third start of the season paid off with the German playmaker in dazzling form.
Willock’s long-range effort appeared to have sealed a moraleboosting win for Arsenal after a difficult few days since squandering a two-goal lead to draw 2-2 with Crystal Palace.
“A crazy match. At the end we were winning until the last action. Penalties are 50/50 and we lost,” said Emery.
Liverpool took the lead in the sixth minute as Arsenal’s Shkodran Mustafi scored an own goal, his attempted clearance from Alex Oxlade-chamberlain’s cross going into the net off his knee. Arsenal levelled after 19 minutes when Mesut Ozil picked out Bukayo Saka and after his shot was saved and Liverpool could not clear, an offside-looking Lucas Torreira tapped home.
Brazilian teenager Gabriel
Martinelli scored his first goal of the night seven minutes later to put Arsenal ahead, scooping in from close range after a save by Kelleher.
Liverpool self-destructed as Elliott’s poor pass went to Ozil who played in Saka to square for Martinelli to score his seventh of the season and make it 3-1, but in the 43rd minute Elliott tumbled in the box at the other end and James Milner tucked away a penalty. Milner’s dreadful back pass allowed Ainsley Maitland-niles to make it 4-2 after Ozil had performed wonders to recycle the ball but Arsenal old boy Oxladechamberlain’s spectacular effort reduced the arrears soon afterwards.
Liverpool equalised in the 62nd minute when Jones played in Origi who turned superbly before unleashing a shot too powerful for Arsenal keeper Emiliano Martinez. Willock’s goal arguably topped the lot though as he advanced forward before launching an unstoppable rightfoot shot into the top corner from 30 metres. But Liverpool have forgotten how to lose and Origi’s shot on the turn, after a cross from 18-year-old Neco Williams, redeemed them at the death.
KLOPP’S THREAT
Klopp has warned Liverpool could pull out of the League Cup if the English Football League do not help with their hectic schedule. Match dates for the quarterfinals are scheduled for the week commencing Dec 16, when Liverpool
will be in Qatar at the Club World Cup. Klopp said if a suitable alternative, the most likely being the week commencing Jan 6, the scheduled date for the first leg of the semi-final, is not found then they would refuse to play. “If they don’t find an appropriate place for us—not 3am on Christmas Day—then we don’t play it,” he said.
UNITED BEAT CHELSEA LONDON:MARCUS Rashford’s “bolt from the blue” stopped resurgent Chelsea in their tracks as his free kick fired Manchester United into the League Cup quarter-finals with a 2-1 victory at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday. With 73 minutes on the clock and Chelsea beginning to dominate after Michy Batshuayi’s superb equaliser, Rashford lined up a free kick 40 metres out and sent the ball dipping and swerving past a helpless Willy Caballero.
Rashford had given a near fullstrength United a deserved halftime lead from the penalty spot after Welshman Daniel James had been fouled by Marcos Alonso. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side held out reasonably comfortably to claim a third successive away victory having previously not won on the road since March.
It was United’s second win over Chelsea this season, having beaten them 4-0 on the opening day of the Premier League.
DREAM DRAW
LONDON: Fourth-tier Colchester United’s chairman expressed his delight at being drawn away at Manchester United in their League Cup quarters declaring “You come into football for days like this.” Colchester—the lowest ranked side remaining in the competition—have lost both times they have faced United: 1-0 in the FA Cup Round 5 in 1978-79 and 2-0 in the League Cup third round in 1983-84. “Everyone’s delighted with the draw,” their chairman Robbie Cowling said.
RONALDO STRIKES
MILAN: Cristiano Ronaldo converted a 96th-minute penalty as Juventus defeated Thiago Motta’s Genoa 2-1 to reclaim top spot in Serie A on Wednesday, while Napoli were left seething after conceding a disputed late equaliser against Atalanta.
Ronaldo sat out the 1-1 draw at Lecce over the weekend but Juve looked set to drop more points on his return in Turin as Christian Kouame’s fluke equaliser cancelled out a header from Leonardo Bonucci. The Portuguese forward saw a stoppage-time strike ruled out by VAR for offside before he won a last-gasp penalty after he was fouled by Toni Sanabria.
Ronaldo drilled the spot-kick low beyond Ionut Radu for his fifth league goal of the season to send Maurizio Sarri’s Juve back above Inter Milan at the summit.
Atalanta twice fought back from a goal behind to hold Napoli to a 2-2 draw, where a fiery ending resulted in red cards for Carlo Ancelotti and his assistant.