Anfield stages one of the more intriguing fixtures of the week’s Carabao Cup fourth round tonight, as Liverpool welcome Chelsea for an 8pm kick off that matters rather more to one dugout than the other. Andoni Iraola’s Liverpool arrive on the back of three straight home wins and a run of good form that has eased some of the pressure that built up earlier in the season. Xabi Alonso’s Chelsea, by contrast, turn up having just been beaten 2-0 at Tottenham, a result Gary Neville described as simply awful, and with their best player suspended for the night.
The two men in the opposing technical areas were born within a short drive of each other in Gipuzkoa, in Spain’s Basque Country. Iraola grew up in Usurbil, a small town on the Atlantic coast, while Alonso is from Tolosa, inland along the same river valley. Both came through as serious footballers before turning into two of the more interesting young coaches in Europe, and this winter finds them on opposite sides of a Premier League club’s dugout for the first time.
Contrasting fortunes going into a cup night
The defeat at Tottenham leaves Chelsea with more to think about than a bruising scoreline. Cole Palmer was sent off during the match and will serve the resulting suspension against Liverpool, robbing Alonso of his most important attacking player for a tie his side badly need to treat seriously if they want to avoid a second damaging defeat inside a week. Paul Merson’s assessment on Sky Sports was blunt: lose to Liverpool and then to Manchester United at the weekend, and Chelsea could find themselves looking anxiously over their shoulder at the top four rather than up at the title picture. Alonso’s start at Chelsea, which began with a derby win over Fulham back in August, has not lacked promise, but a club with Chelsea’s recent history of patience running thin will not wait forever for results to catch up with the performances.
Iraola’s situation could hardly be more different. Since replacing Arne Slot in the summer, he has had to manage expectation at a champion club while also easing a group of players into his own way of working, and a run of home matches without a win earlier in the autumn had started to generate the kind of scrutiny that follows every Liverpool manager sooner or later. Sunday’s 2-0 win over Brighton, in which Alexander Isak scored again despite Liverpool having barely more than a third of the possession, eased that pressure considerably. Three home wins on the spin have Liverpool back in the top four and facing champions Arsenal at Anfield this coming Sunday, a fixture that now looks considerably more significant than it did a fortnight ago.
That weekend schedule is precisely why this one carries an extra layer of intrigue. Both managers have a genuine selection dilemma: how much to risk in a competition that is secondary to the league, with a heavyweight top of the table fixture only four days away for Liverpool and a trip to an out of form Manchester United only three days away for Chelsea. Expect both teams to show changes from their weekend line ups, though neither manager will want to be seen going through the motions in a cup competition both clubs would be glad to win.
A familiar face returning to where it started
One name certain to feature prominently for Liverpool is Rio Ngumoha, who began his career in Chelsea’s academy before leaving for Anfield. The teenager has been one of the stories of Liverpool’s autumn, scoring a crucial goal in the Champions League comeback against Villarreal last week and coming off the bench to make an impact in the win over Brighton at the weekend. Facing the club that let him go, in a game his current manager is likely to use to keep his momentum going while protecting others for the weekend, adds a neat personal subplot to a tie that already has plenty going on.
There is also a second instalment of this week’s Chelsea story to watch for. Alonso’s side also face Liverpool and Manchester United in quick succession. Sunderland and Leeds follow soon after in the league, meaning the next couple of weeks will tell us a great deal about whether this is a blip or the start of something more serious for a club that invested heavily in getting this appointment right.
The other half of the night’s business
Liverpool and Chelsea is not the only meeting of note in tonight’s fourth round. Manchester City travel to face Brighton at the Amex in the earlier kick off, the first of two meetings between the sides this week, with a league fixture also to come. Brighton go into it on the back of a weekend defeat at Liverpool, but they arrive with real credentials against City specifically, unbeaten in their last four meetings with them, a record that includes two wins and two draws, their best run ever against City. Fabian Hurzeler’s side have shown throughout the season that they are capable of troubling the division’s leading clubs, and City will not fancy underestimating them again inside the space of a week.
None of that changes where the real focus of the night lies, though. Two coaches who grew up a short journey apart in the same Basque province, now managing two of English football’s grandest old clubs, meet in a competition neither side will admit matters as much as the league, even though for one of them, right now, it rather feels like it might. Iraola has the freedom to use the night as he sees fit, rotating where needed and building towards Arsenal with confidence restored. Alonso does not have that luxury. Another sluggish Chelsea performance, without his best player on the pitch, against a Liverpool side playing with genuine momentum, would be a difficult thing to shake off before hosting Manchester United at Stamford Bridge on Saturday.
Cup nights have a habit of throwing up evenings that carry more weight than their billing suggests. This one, on paper a competition both clubs would rather win than lose but would not define their season either way, arrives at exactly the moment when one manager needs a lift far more than the other.
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