Klopp hails ‘outstanding’ Arsenal star after Liverpool reach EFL Cup final – Football365


Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp claims everyone should “remember that name” after watching Gabriel Martinelli play for Arsenal on Thursday night.

Martinelli, who showed flashes of brilliant play, was on the losing side as the Reds beat the Gunners 2-0 in the second leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final.

After a goalless first leg at Anfield last week, Diogo Jota’s first-half daisy-cutter caught Aaron Ramsdale flat-footed and he then saw a second-half VAR check rule he was onside following a smart finish as Liverpool won.


Enigmatic Arsenal find themselves wrongfooted by Diogo Jota & Liverpool


To top off a miserable night for Arsenal, Thomas Partey – who only returned from the Africa Cup of Nations earlier in the day – was sent off just 16 minutes after coming off the bench.

However, when asked the prospect of facing Chelsea in the final, Klopp insisted on praising Martinelli for his performance on Thursday night.

Klopp said: “Martinelli by the way, everybody should remember that name because he’s an outstanding player.”

The Liverpool boss added: “Chelsea… you play a final, it’s pretty likely you’ll face an outstandingly strong team, that’s what’s happening now.

“Nevertheless we wanted to qualify and that’s what we did.

“Wembley is a special place – how we all know. There’s a lot of games to play until then, so it’s not now that you just play next week or whatever.

“There are a lot of games to play, we will see where we are then. But we really put a lot of effort in this competition and we really wanted to go through.

“So when you go through, when you’re in the final, there’s absolutely no reason to be part of a final if you don’t want to win it. We want to win it but we know how difficult it will be.”

Speaking further about Arsenal, Klopp commented that Liverpool found it “really tricky” to play against Mikel Arteta’s side with Bukayo Saka and Martinelli causing them problems.

Klopp continued: “The way Arsenal plays with these long balls behind the full-backs, it’s really tricky with the speed they have there with Saka and [Martinelli].

“That’s really, really special, so we had to be awake in these moments. But on top of that, we had to play football.

“The first 10 minutes I didn’t like what we played but then we were in the game and then it looked really flexible and proper. I’m happy about that.”

 





Source link

Back to top button