The League Cup

smemon

surprised not to see a few posts on utd and pool.
both won against premiership opposition, 2 cracking matches. i think this shows how important the league cup is to utd and liverpool fans. its 4th and last compared to the league, champs league (uefa cup in some cases) and fa cup.

must give liverpool credit again, attacking football gets the neutrals on ur side and keeps everyone happy bar the opposition. i thought i'd never see another 4-3 match ever again involving liverpool. they were up against 10men for more than half the match but still they did the job and made sure of no slip-up.

utd - leeds match was just stop-start the whole time, a free kick, corner every 2 minutes. very young and inexperienced utd side out, 2 debutants also. forlan impressed me, remarkable strength and pace for a match stick man

set pieces really do need to be improved, it gets a bit annoying having to scramble the ball away from corners and lax or non existant marking. thats the only defensive thing im worried about, set pieces. but we still out-scored leeds and won with a reserve side bar 3 or 4 regulars.

bolton for pool and west brom for utd next, tricky ties again.

The Muppet

Good match alright Pool V Blackburn , Great football at times from both teams and the pool deserving their win imo.

I would share your concerns about UTDS defence from set Pieces , particularly crosses from either side, I,m sure fergie will be trying to improve in this area. Leeds were unlucky not to get to pennos at least bit oc=ver the 120 mins i thought we deserved our win.

eirebhoy

You would think that getting rid of the weaker sides would bring a more exciting set of matches in the next round but the "big" match is Southampton-v-Portsmouth which shows how bad the draw was.

I don't understand why a lot of the Premiership teams don't put out their best side in this competition and people call it the "Worthless Cup" or other names. If you win this competition you have earned at least a couple of million and a place in the UEFA cup. only the top 7 sides in the Premiership are guaranteed a place in Europe so I don't know why most premiership teams don't put out their best eleven. There is probably only two teams that don't need to win it and thats Man United and Chelsea. Arsenal need the money and the rest of the teams can not be guranteed to finish in the top seven.

I hope someone like Crystal Palace or Milwall win the competition.

growler

I'm hoping for a chelsea v spurs fixture, would make it worthwhile and we need some league cup revenge on tottenham.

btw. notts county put up a good game last night, would have been worth a lot of cash to them to progress. Nice to see West Brom going on though.

jesus_thats_gre

The pool match was a bit crazy i though. The result of 4 - 3 didnt do justice to the game and the amount of oppurtunities the pool had. 7 - 3 would have been a fairer result..

As for Heskey, I felt sorry for him when he took that peno

mike65

Good game last for both Pool fans and the neutral, looking foward to Arsenal - Wolves in the next round!

Mike.

AngelofFire

Originally posted by eireboy
You would think that getting rid of the weaker sides would bring a more exciting set of matches in the next round but the "big" match is Southampton-v-Portsmouth

Saints Vs Pompey is a derby match. all derbies between premiership clubs are always exciting.

I enjoyed the liverpool v blackburn match but i thought the scowzers shud of done better against an off form down to ten men blackburn. After watching the highlights of Villa vs Leicster i was dissapointed with our performance. we showed composure in our midfield and defense but we just we`rent creative enough in attack. this is a problem DOL needs to address.

jonno

I really enjoyed watching Liverpool last night. I had my reservations when I saw the line up especially with Biscan at right back and Traore on the other side. They were very shaky throughout the pitch until Blackburn deservedly took the lead.

I thought Diouf was fantastic again. Heskey really showed what he is good at with his goals. I felt sorry for him missing the peno even though it was a poor one. The fans were shouting for him to take it so he did.

In the end the two goals from Blackburn flattered them. They didn't do anything in the second half and with Liverpool's shaky makeshift back four they got the two goals.

Oh and welcome back Didi Hamann (played another 75 minutes tonight in the reserves)

jesus_thats_gre

Yup, Diouf is very quickly proving to be an excellent winger... Finally, playing someone out of position has paid off

On a serious note, he was deadly against Blackburn. I honestly feel he is a similar player to Damian Duff (not as good obviously). He loves taking on defenders, makes a show of them and the only way they can get the ball of him is foul him.

smemon

a great quote from GH after the match, dunno if anyone else heard it, he was talking about heskey and said:

"the good thing is he misses chances now"- meaning he gets himself in good positions and is supposed to be a class act.

mc ateer through a few digs at souness before the match, saying he holds grudges and will freeze you out if he doesnt like you. im sure souness wasnt too impressed.

therecklessone

Originally posted by growler
I'm hoping for a chelsea v spurs fixture, would make it worthwhile and we need some league cup revenge on tottenham.

FFS, is it not enough that you humiliate us every time we step onto the same pitch in the league??? Greedy Chelsea t'will be from now on...;)

Or did you just want a trip to Three Point Lane for an easy route to the next round?