Granit Xhaka Red Carded, Arsenal Draw Liverpool In League Cup 1st Leg Semi Final

JAKARTA - Arsenal successfully held Liverpool to a 0-0 draw in the first leg of the English League Cup semifinal at Anfield Stadium, Thursday local time. In this match, the Gunners had to complete the appearance with only ten players.

Quoted from Antara, Friday, the team suffered a heavy loss when Granit Xhaka was shown a red card after carelessly lifting his foot too high and ending up fouling Diogo Jota in a Liverpool counter-attack in the 24th minute.

However, the situation of eleven against ten could only be used by Liverpool to dominate possession without ever really creating a threat to Arsenal's goal throughout the match.

The absence of Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane who were defending their respective countries in the Africa Cup of Nations, was felt in the Liverpool camp, which was unable to record a single shot on target throughout the match, according to the records of the official EFL website.

One of Liverpool's best opportunities only resulted in Xhaka's red card, because if Jota is not violated he has wide open space to test the agility of goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale.

Trent Alexander-Arnold's free-kick was not able to be utilized by Trent Alexander-Arnold, whose execution only hit Arsenal's fence.

Previously, Liverpool also had a chance in the 12th minute when Ramsdale made a small blunder when he cleared the ball which instead hit Jordan Henderson, but the Liverpool captain was not in a comfortable position to chase the round skin and only produced a corner.

Three minutes into the second half, Takumi Minamino crossed in too sharp and almost beat Ramsdale but the ball ended up being cleared by Gabriel Magalhaes who kept the danger out of the Arsenal defense.

Mikel Arteta opted for a rational move by bolstering Arsenal's defense but the visitors had their only shot on target of the game through Bukayo Saka in the 72nd minute but goalkeeper Alisson Becker kept Liverpool safe.

At the end of normal time, Liverpool had a golden opportunity to win the game when Ramsdale anticipated imperfectly and created chaos in front of Arsenal's goal, only for Minamino to shoot high in front of the gaping goal.

This result is clearly an injection of confidence for Arsenal who will then host Liverpool at the Emirates for the semi-final second leg on Thursday next week.

The winner of this semi-final will be awaited by Chelsea, who has walked smoothly past Tottenham Hotspur with a 3-0 aggregate victory.