LUCAS BERGVALL STRUCK an 86th-minute winner to earn Tottenham a 1-0 victory over Liverpool and a slender advantage after a cagey Carabao Cup semi-final first leg.
Spurs were without 10 players for this tie and had lost 6-3 to Arne Slot’s irresistible Premier League leaders last month, but turned the form table on its head – albeit with a touch of fortune.
Match-winner Bergvall was lucky to avoid a second yellow card for a late tackle on Kostas Tsimikas moments before he fired home his first goal for the club to earn Tottenham and Ange Postecoglou a much-needed win.
Postecoglou had faced external pressure after a nightmare run of form amid a horror injury crisis, which deepened with Rodrigo Bentancur forced off early amid worrying scenes, but his injury-hit team with debutant goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky managed to shut out Liverpool to head to Anfield next month with a narrow lead.
Liverpool put six past Spurs in the Premier League last month, but the hosts had a new goalkeeper this time after Postecoglou decided to hand Kinsky his debut three days on from his arrival.
Trent Alexander-Arnold was dropped to the bench and yet only six minutes were on the clock when a lengthy stoppage occurred due to a head injury for Bentancur.
Bentancur was taken off on a stretcher in the 15th minute after he appeared to head the floor from a corner – with Radu Dragusin denied by Alisson Becker moments later.
Spurs later confirmed Bentancur was conscious and talking and would go to hospital for further checks.
The stop-start nature of the tie continued with young Liverpool centre-back Jarell Quansah forced off not long after Mohamed Salah had curled wide from outside the penalty area.
Kinsky made his first save after 33 minutes but it was a routine stop from Alexis Mac Allister’s header before Liverpool upped the ante in first-half stoppage time.
Salah chipped over after a fine run by Cody Gakpo, who almost surprised Kinsky soon after with a long-range shot before the Dutch forward curled off target as it remained goalless at the break.
Clear-cut opportunities had been few and far between until the 56th minute when Spurs should have taken the lead.
Bergvall brilliantly slide in on Alisson to win possession inside Liverpool’s penalty area and Pedro Porro was played in, but chipped wide much to Postecoglou’s frustration.
Slot made a triple substitution on the hour mark with Trent Alexander-Arnold, Luis Diaz and Darwin Nunez introduced, but Salah was kept on the pitch.
The Egyptian almost helped create the breakthrough with 21 minutes left when he played through Nunez only for Kinsky to stand up well to block the shot.
Alexander-Arnold did manage to beat Kinsky from a tight angle moments later but Dragusin got back to clear off the line before Mac Allister dragged his follow-up wide.
Postecoglou had seen enough and replaced captain Son Heung-min with Werner, who immediately raced past Alexander-Arnold but sent his effort into the side-netting.
It lifted the home team and Tottenham thought they had taken the lead in the 76th-minute when Solanke latched on to Porro’s perfectly weighted pass and rolled past Alisson.
VAR was required and Solanke’s effort was eventually ruled out for offside, which referee Stuart Attwell announced to the whole stadium in a first for English football.
Attwell had another decision to make when Bergvall caught Tsimikas late, but the already booked Swedish midfielder avoided a sending-off and made his second life count with four minutes left.
Solanke impressively held off Ibrahima Konate and teed up Bergvall to drill into the bottom corner from 12 yards to spark big celebrations.
Seven minutes were added on and Tottenham needed debutant Kinsky to produce an outstanding full-stretch save to thwart Nunez to ensure they head to Anfield with a one-goal advantage.
Spurs just about deserved the win, new keeper looks decent. Might not be enough of a lead in Anfield though.
@Bert Carolan: kinky was impressive for his Debut. Looks like a good keeper. Pool will have way too much for them at Anfield.
Two poor Teams
@Billy Bell: ur half right.
Liverpool were poor but fair play to Spurs. Considering their injury list they looked decent. A bit of a scare is no harm for Liverpool to wake em up a bit.
@ecrowley ecrowley: so a defeat is actually a good thing Liverpool fans are fantastic.
@paulie: ah look its made its day
@Max: meaningless competition used to give squad player’s a run out
With any luck they will lose the 2nd leg too we have much bigger fish to fry between now and May. Not interested in that trophy in the slightest.
@David Shepherd: by the reactions of pool management and captain don’t think they agree with ya
@David Shepherd: It’s literally one extra game and a great day out in wembley for the club and fans for silverware. Come on man. Liverpool will be taking the 2nd leg 100% seriously.
@David Shepherd: Not at all,when your in it,you want to win it, Liverpool have a decent enough squad to compete on all fronts,it’s two more games, will need to improve and get back to winning ways,hope bentacur is ok.
@Barry Lehane: No point wasting your time this fella twists everything to fit his agenda. The most toxic ‘fan’ of any club by a country mile and its laughable at times. You’re 100% right, not even a Liverpool fan myself but I know any true fan and the players themselves will be mad to win it. None more so than Slot in his first season.
@Dessie: Trophy is a trophy end of the day but I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. Wouldn’t be my personal choice. League title is worth 100 of those cups.
@Barry Lehane: Still couldn’t care less if we lost to Macclesfield town or Spurs tonight ….. Worthless trophy in my opinion.
@Deano74: Couple of key injuries and Liverpool would struggle no point risking it when we have bigger trophies to play for.
@Ultán Corcoran: Can you point to us on the doll where they touched you?
@David Shepherd: It’s more entertaining than the fa cup most of the time , and look at the teams that won it on the way to better things, using it as a stepping stone for future success, Chelsea , Liverpool, City won it first before going on to win the bigger trophies and even United won it and won the Europa same year as far as I remember. It’s not prestigious but I see it as an invaluable competition as teams use it as a springboard for even bigger success.
@Fionn Bohane: I’d be using it to bleed younger players, fringe players see what they are made of. Now if we were struggling in the league I’d take it all day long but considering our current position in the league and champions league I know what I’d be prioritising.
@David Shepherd: ya in the early rounds that’s great , maybe a bit more rotation tonight from Liverpool they could have lost by more. My main point is winning an early cup sets a certain standard going forward for future success , if not this season the following one. (judging on aforementioned clubs experiences with wining this competition) 3 managers in the last 4 looking for their first success with their clubs and all 4 played close to their best .
@Barry Lehane: he aint a liverpool fan allways slagging players
@Ultán Corcoran: 100 percent
BERGVALL has the makings of being proper player
Poor decision with the yellow but I don’t think Liverpool will fret on that much . They must know they weren’t great anyway. Don’t think 1 nil will be enough for spurs at anfield. But who knows what Liverpool they will be playing in a months time.
I followed text commentary on both BBC and RTE. As well as BBC being vastly superior in quality, it really is amazing to read the vast majority of how Irish reporters write, in relation to not writing “English” or “England” in their reports.
I lost count of the number of times he wrote Egyptian, Irish, Uruguayan, Colombian, etc but never once did he mention any player is English. For example, Dominic Solanke, he’s a senior England international yet he writes “the striker”. The other Spurs striker, he told us at least twice he was Swedish.
Why do Irish writers do this?? It is quite disgusting. The Irish are very similar to the English but they can’t admit it!!
@Joseph Fitzgibbon: It’s known as begrudgery and chip on the shoulder syndrome and the Irish and in particular the Dublin media are renowned for it. When Sonia O’Sullivan was having all her success in athletics she was always referred to as the Cobh girl and not the Cork girl by the Dublin based media, the exact same is now happening with the Rowers being referred to as the lads from Skibbereen but Cork is never mentioned and When Roy Keane lifted all those League and FA Cup trophies it was always the Mayfield lad but again Cork was seldom mentioned except of course when he done something negative. We are all guilty of parochialism in some form or another but the Dublin based media are on a different level.
@Joseph Fitzgibbon: Your preoccupation with English players not being designated or described as English is odd to say the least. Perhaps, in the ENGLISH Premier League, you can take it as a given that if players aren’t designated to be from a particular country then, by default, they are English players!
@Joseph Fitzgibbon: what
Ref complete bottle job
@Mark Anthony McNally: wasn’t the reason they lost. Konate had all the time in the world to clear that ball
@Dessie: I agree with you but the ref also bottled a key decision, least it wasn’t a league game and we have another go at them
@Dessie: Nonsense, he was never on the ball. But he did overcommit chasing back for it which let Solanke cut inside…
@Mark Anthony McNally: wasnt a yellow as in line with the rules, the foul did not prevent the counter attack.
It’s all potentially gonna come a Kopper for Liverpool at this rate. Lots of games. Various trophy distractions. Transfer speculation. This will go down to the wire!
Liverpool deserved nothing, but wow, England truly has the most useless officials the game has ever seen. They are making American officials look really honest. With VAR there, and these things continuing to happen. There must be money moving. I’ve never seen it so bad.
@Graham: money from who kavie
@Graham: which VAR decision? They don’t get involved in yellow card offences
@Dave McAuliffe: meant VAR in general.
@Graham: who’s giving corrupt payments to the refs kavie
No worried at all will destroy them next week but id even like newcastle to win i not really bothered
@Max: next month.