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Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp celebrate their victory with the usual passion. To a man they were excellent tonight. The 5-1 scoreline doesn’t flatter them a bit, and that’ll make up for their stodgy showing against Manchester United. They’ll go into the Arsenal game at the weekend in a far better frame of mind. However, as good as Liverpool were, West Ham were abysmal, their defence ragged, their attack toothless. The exception that proved the rule: birthday-boy Jarred Bowen’s fantastic goal. You can be sure David Moyes will want to avoid Klopp’s side in the Europa League.
FULL TIME: Liverpool 5-1 West Ham United
Liverpool join Middlesbrough, Fulham and Chelsea in the semi-finals. Draw to come! Go nowhere!
90 min +4: A long ball nearly finds Ings on the edge of the Liverpool box, but Kelleher gets there first. Meanwhile Grant Tennille would like to offer the dictionary definition of “Simulacrummy: West Ham’s attempt at imitating a competent defence.”
90 min +3: His radar’s off. West Ham clear. But Elliott comes back down the right and wins another corner. Alexander-Arnold plays this one short. That routine goes nowhere, too.
90 min +2: Salah busies himself and wins a corner down the right. Alexander-Arnold ambles across to take it.
90 min +1: The first of four added minutes. Jamie Carragher names Curtis Jones as Sky’s player of the match. Few would quibble.
90 min: … but it looks like the only thing he’ll add to his stats tonight is a booking. He picks one up for clumsily back-heeling Kehrer in the face.
89 min: Jones releases Nunez down the left … but the flag goes up for offside. Nunez is fuming. Cross with himself. He desperately wants a goal.
88 min: Elliott tries to get in on the fun but, falling backwards, scoops a weak shot wide left from distance.
86 min: It’s fair to say David Moyes will now go 21 games at Anfield without a victory. He’s raging, by the way. Empurpled. That is not the way a David Moyes side usually defends. “I feel that Noel Moline may be writing out the 100 lines himself,” writes Gary Moore. “John Cleese was surely wearing a tunic, not a toga.”
GOAL! Liverpool 5-1 West Ham United (Jones 84)
Jones picks up possession on the halfway line. He dribbles down the inside-left channel. Suddenly West Ham’s defence opens up generously. He drifts into the middle, into the box, a little right of centre, then dinks across Areola and into the bottom left. What a run! What appalling defending!
GOAL! Liverpool 4-1 West Ham United (Salah 82)
You can’t keep a good man down. Salah, having just squirted wide of an open goal, is sent clear down the middle, West Ham having committed everyone to a futile attack. Salah reaches the edge of the box, draws Areola, and rolls a shot across the keeper and into the bottom right.
82 min: Former Liverpool striker Ings comes on for Alvarez.
81 min: Nunez comes barrelling in from the left. He reaches the edge of the D before thrashing a low drive across Areola … and off the base of the right-hand post. The ball pings back to Salah, who can’t adjust his body to steer the rebound into the net. Wide left. How did that stay out?!
80 min: “Noel Moline’s quote is incomplete,” writes Winston Smith. “He forgot the last line: ‘Or I’ll cut your balls off.’”
78 min: That’s a lovely birthday present for Bowen, who is 27 today. Gakpo is replaced by Diaz. The game restarts and Gomez storms down the inside-left channel before taking a shot. It’s a decent effort, but well held by Areola. That senior goal remains elusive.
GOAL! Liverpool 3-1 West Ham United (Bowen 77)
This is a brilliant goal. Johnson sends a speculative ball down the left. Bowen gets ahead of Quansah, turns the young defender just inside the box, and curls a glorious shot across Kelleher and into the top right. What a finish!
75 min: Liverpool ping it around. Bradley, who has looked lively since coming on, wins a corner down the right. It leads to a brief game of pinball in the West Ham six-yard box, but nothing drops to a home shirt and the visitors can clear their lines.
74 min: This scoreline doesn’t flatter Liverpool at all. They look in the mood for more, as well. West Ham continue to struggle to retain possession. Meanwhile here’s Noel Moline: “Where’s John Cleese dressed in a toga when you need him, to tell Paul Griffin ‘Simulacra is plural, simulacrum is singular. Now, write it out 100 times.’”
72 min: Kehrer and Ward-Prowse come on for Kudus and Coufal.
GOAL! Liverpool 3-0 West Ham United (Gakpo 71)
Ogbonna and Soucek leave a loose ball to each other. Konate nips in and steals off with it and feeds Gakpo, who threads a shot into the bottom left from the edge of the D. Simple as that. Game over, surely.
71 min: West Ham take a quick throw down the right. Kudus strides towards the box and sends a screamer inches over the bar. Kelleher probably had it covered. It’s West Ham’s first effort at goal.
70 min: Bradley’s very first contribution is to cushion Alexander-Arnold’s long diagonal pass into Salah’s path down the inside-right channel. It’s an exquisite touch, and worthy of an assist. Sadly Salah slices wildly into the Kop. That would have been a picture-book goal.
68 min: The young right-back Bradley replaces Tsimikas. Gomez comes across to the left of Liverpool’s defence.
66 min: That Curtis Jones goal was Liverpool’s 500th in this tournament. Only Aston Villa, with 514, have scored more. You can thank Sky Sports for that one.
65 min: Nunez dribbles at slow speed down the left but still wins a corner through sheer persistence. It’s all for nought, though, because Tsimikas’s set-piece delivery is off-whack. “It’s alright this game,” begins Paul Griffin. “Lovely, open, and there’s a nice contrast between the home side’s youthful energy and their opponent’s increasingly desperate resolution. However, it is entirely lacking regular pauses to watch some barely competent men in Hillingdon draw wobbly, grandiose lines on a low resolution screen, so it’s a poor simulation of the real thing as far as I am concerned. Whoever wins will know it’s a mere simulacra of a victory.”
63 min: … the ball’s worked from Alexander-Arnold on the right, to Tsimikas on the left, then back again. Alexander-Arnold hits a cross-cum-shot through a crowded box. Nunez lunges but can’t connect and the ball bobbles wide left.
62 min: Liverpool pour forward at speed. Quansah strides out from the back. Gakpo finds Salah, who feeds Elliott into the box from the right. Elliott tries to nutmeg Areola from a tight angle and is forced to settle for a corner. From which …
60 min: Liverpool make a triple change, replacing Szoboszlai, Van Dijk and Endo with Alexander-Arnold, Konate and Salah.
58 min: Fornals swings a cross in from the left. Kelleher comes way off his line to punch clear spectacularly. Liverpool counter through Jones, who looks for the top right this time. Always wide, always high.
57 min: That was a fine goal from the perspective of Liverpool and Jones; not so good from Areola’s perspective. Beaten at his near post. Paqueta comes on for Benrahma.
GOAL! Liverpool 2-0 West Ham United (Jones 56)
Liverpool have been hammering on the door, and they get their reward. Jones plays a ball round the corner, down the left for Nunez. He keeps on running for the box, and gets the ball back. There’s nobody in the middle, so he has a whack from a tight angle. He blasts the ball straight through Areola, across the face of goal and into the bottom right!
55 min: Nunez has a crack from out left. His drive smacks straight into Gakpo.
54 min: Gakpo clears the corner with an authoritative header. But that’s better from West Ham, who despite taking a territorial hammering are only one goal behind. A reminder to Liverpool that the tie is far from over.
53 min: Johnson sashays down the left and rolls a pass down the flank for Bowen, who enters the box and crosses low. Tsimikas is forced to poke behind for a corner with Soucek lurking behind him.
52 min: Alvarez slides in late on Elliott, catching him on the ankle. Not the worst challenge, not the best. The yellow card he gets seems about right.
50 min: Another wave of Liverpool attack. Jones takes a shot from the left-hand edge of the D. That one bobbles harmlessly wide right; the keeper had it covered.
49 min: Liverpool quickly come back at West Ham. Nunez makes his way into the box from the left and sends a rising shot towards the top left. Areola turns it around for another corner; nothing comes of that one either.
47 min: Jones comes in from the left and shoots. It’s deflected out for a corner, which Liverpool take quickly. Endo tries to release Szoboszlai down the right. The pass is too strong, but Szoboszlai somehow reaches it before it goes out for a corner, then sends in a cross that’s deflected miles into the sky by Ogbonna, so much so that Nunez can’t leap high enough to head home a couple of yards out. Coufal turns it out for a corner, from which nothing comes.
Liverpool get the second half underway. No changes.
Half-time entertainment. Open up an early present from The Knowledge.
HALF TIME: Liverpool 1-0 West Ham United
On the balance of play, this scoreline flatters West Ham. They’ll need to do some thinking if they’re to deny Liverpool progress to the last four.
45 min +1: One added minute. Benrahma dribbles down the left but can’t get a cross in. Kelleher still hasn’t had his hands warmed.
45 min: Elliott makes good down the right. He sails infield before curling a lovely cross into the mixer. Gakpo rises highest, on the edge of the six-yard box, and guides a header across Areola and inches wide of the right-hand post. On target, that was 2-0, because Areola was rooted to the spot.
44 min: The West Ham fans aren’t letting it get them down, though. A lusty rendition of Bubbles. “It seems to me that Liverpool are shooting from range a lot more than other teams are, and that they themselves used to do,” observes Kári Tulinius. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Klopp or someone on his staff identified some marginal gain, whether purely in goals scored from range, or also because it makes defenders worry about players forty yards from goal, which can free up space in behind.”
42 min: Kudus tries to get something going for West Ham. He dribbles down the right, cuts infield, then … hoicks a wild crossfield pass, directed towards nobody, into the Kop. West Ham have done absolutely nothing in attack.
40 min: A loose ball in the West Ham box. Gomez races in, swings a leg and … misses altogether. He’s never scored a goal in senior football. The wait goes on.
39 min: Jones makes it into the box from the left and attempts the curler. His shot is blocked, then pings back off him and out for a goal kick.
