Ronald Koeman has fond memories of Wembley. “I think it’s one of the best places to win trophies,” the Southampton manager had said on Tuesday, with a glint in his eye. The memories of his extra-time winner for Barcelona in the 1992 European Cup final against Sampdoria will never fade.
Koeman wanted to get back to the national stadium – desperately so. To him the game is about the glory – in other words titles and trophies – and not stuff like Europa League qualification via the league, which might serve a purpose but hardly stands the test of time.
He considered this Capital One Cup quarter-final against Liverpool to be a tantalising opportunity, a springboard to a Wembley final, a potential catalyst. Instead Liverpool ran riot to heap humiliation on him and provoke a public bout of soul-searching.
Koeman would not say what he said to his players in the dressing room afterwards – “I keep that for myself, it’s not for you” – but there was the painful acknowledgment that he might have to adopt a less open and attacking style, even if that goes against his risk-taking instincts. When the damage is this bad, it is only natural to retreat into a shell.
Southampton did not turn up for the first 20 minutes at Manchester City on Saturday – and the game was beyond them by the time they stirred. Here they were in charge for 20 minutes. It was just a shame about the other 70. Defensively Koeman’s team were a shambles and a fast and incisive Liverpool team meted out brutal punishment.
Koeman switched to three at the back in the 63rd minute, in an attempt to chase the game, but it merely opened up a raft of gaps and Liverpool did not spare them. The balance was all wrong and Southampton suffered their heaviest home defeat for 56 years. “Three-one, 6-1, it doesn’t matter, we are out,” Koeman said. But the tremors from the scale of this battering will reverberate for weeks.
Koeman’s line-up was as strong as it could have been and he was desperate for his players to thrive on what was a special occasion – under the lights at St Mary’s, in front of a sell-out crowd and against a club that he describes as “one of the biggest in the world”.
The passions surged and Liverpool’s recent plunder of players from Southampton added further spice. The first boos for Dejan Lovren were heard in the seventh second while Adam Lallana had to wait until the sixth for his. There was no let-up for either of them and the home crowd crowed at their early mistakes. But both of them grew into the game with Lallana in particular giving a performance of skill and no little courage. To him the jeers were fuel.
Koeman had smarted for days at the manner in which his team started at City and he got a response. There was much to like about his team for the first half of the first half, from Dusan Tadic’s tormenting of the 20-year-old Liverpool right-back, Connor Randall, to the possibilities that Sadio Mané provided. There was energy and snap. Koeman’s hopes surged when Mané headed home after 41 seconds.
But it made what followed simply harder to swallow. Liverpool showed the ruthlessness that Koeman had demanded from his players. Their first two chances fell to Daniel Sturridge and on his first start for Jürgen Klopp, he scored both of them.
Steven Caulker, in for the injured José Fonte, must have been the only person inside St Mary’s who did not think that Sturridge was going to jink back on to his left foot for the first. The second was marked by Emre Cam’s wonderful outside-of-the-boot assist and Southampton chins were on the floor when Divock Origi touched in Alberto Moreno’s goal-bound shot for the third. Southampton’s descent from control to turmoil was shocking.
Southampton had given away a little treat with the match-day magazine – a reprint of the programme from the 1987 Littlewoods Cup semi-final, first-leg meeting between the two clubs, which had been staged at The Dell. It chimed in some respects with the old-school competitor in Koeman. There was a shot of Ian Rush on the cover, in Liverpool’s Crown Paints-sponsored yellow away strip.
Liverpool had prevailed back then – winning 3-0 on aggregate – and how they twisted the knife here. Koeman barely moved from his seat during the closing stages. This was a night when his dreams turned into nightmares.
