Liverpool defeats Fulham 2-1 in the first leg thanks to a double substitution by Jurgen Klopp, who despite losing Trent Alexander-Arnold and Mohamed Salah, helped his team rally from behind.
Liverpool defeated Fulham in the first leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final at Anfield, coming back from behind to continue their incredible success.
After some careless Liverpool defending, Willian fired home to give Fulham the lead. The visitors were able to frustrate their opponents until the middle of the second half. Curtis Jones tied the score after Fulham wasted a fantastic opportunity to go ahead 2-0 when his shot deflected off Tosin Adarabioyo and beat Bernd Leno from a distance.
After that, Darwin Nunez crossed for Cody Gakpo, another substitute, to score at the near post. If Leno hadn’t stopped Nunez at point blank range, Liverpool would have won the game 3-1 and emerged as the stronger team overall. Even without important players, they enter the second leg as favourites to advance to the championship. The talking points from Mirror Football are as follows.
With the Africa Cup of Nations coming up, Liverpool has always known they would need to manage without Mohamed Salah, but Trent Alexander-Arnold’s injury happened at a very unfortunate moment. It cost Liverpool not just one of their starting right flankers, but also their most inventive player.
Salah and Alexander-Arnold were replaced by Harvey Elliott and Conor Bradley, so it was not shocking that they were unable to reach those heights. While on loan at Bolton last season, Bradley scored five goals and provided four assists, demonstrating his natural attacking ability as a right-back. However, drawing analogies between Bradley and Alexander-Arnold is not constructive. However, putting the attacking side aside, it was evident that Willian and Antonee Robinson of Fulham were superior to their opponents on that flank.
