Head Coach Julen Lopetegui felt the big decisions and big moments went against his side as West Ham United were knocked out of the Carabao Cup at Liverpool.
The Hammers took the lead through Jarell Quansah’s own-goal on 21 minutes. Four minutes later, Cody Gakpo got away down the left from an offside position before his cross was volleyed goalwards by Federico Chiesa and Diogo Jota headed in. With no VAR, the equaliser stood.
Into the second half and West Ham had a strong penalty appeal turned down when Carlos Soler’s flick hit Joe Gomez’s arm, before Jota slotted Liverpool in front. Soler and Maximilian Kilman then saw shots kept out by Caoimhin Kelleher before a second penalty appeal was refused by referee Andy Madley after Vladimír Coufal’s cross hit Konstantinos Tsimikas.
Mohamed Salah then settled the tie with 16 minutes to go by slamming high past Łukasz Fabiański and, after Edson Álvarez had been sent-off for two bookable offences, Cody Gakpo gave the final scoreline a one-sided appearance with two late goals.
West Ham had played well for an hour, but ultimately the final scoreline suggested they had been thrashed, when in truth they had given Liverpool a proper game and, had VAR been in operation, Lopetegui believes the outcome could have been totally different.
I think it was an even game for 60 minutes.
I think we played one of our better matches, but you can’t say that when you look at the scoreline. We didn’t deserve to lose by this scoreline, as we had a lot of chances. We suffered one goal, which was offside in the first half, and that’s the reason why I love VAR.
In the second half we could have had a penalty, and the next action they score the second goal. After this, we did very, very well and were still in the match until 70 minutes.
We had many clear chances to level the match but didn’t score. When we went down to ten players, it became a lot more difficult, but sometimes this can happen.
I think we had very good actions and showed more personality, character, and more of what we want to do with the ball.
There are positives, though, such as the players who played for the first time in the starting line-up, though it is not easy to say that today. People like Jean-Clair [Todibo], Carlos [Soler], and Crysencio [Summerville] all had a very good match. We have to take the positives and look forward to Brentford.
Today was a hard day, because first of all we had a big expectation in this competition despite playing at Anfield against Liverpool.
We are now eliminated from the Carabao Cup, and now we have to put our focus on the more important competitions, such as the Premier League.
I think that we have to think about the next match against Brentford, as this is a very important match for us. We have to be ready to compete and take the positives because they are going to demand this.
