Following Sunday’s 6-3 demolition goal-fest of Tottenham on the road in Liverpool’s final game before Christmas and with Arne Slot’s Reds sitting four points clear at the top of the Premier League table with a game in hand on their chasers, the draw for the League Cup semi-final was set.
In it, a reunion with Tottenham is on the cards, with the first leg coming early in the new year on Wednesday, January 8th away at Hotspur Stadium in London before an odd, month-long wait for leg two. That second game is set for Anfield on Thursday, February 6th. Both will have an 8PM GMT kickoff.
The extended four-week gap between legs is highly unusual—last year games were played on the 9th and 10th of January and then the 23rd and 24th, a gap of two—and appears to be a result of the final two weeks of January having been blocked off for expanded European competition.
It’s a situation that only draws attention to both fixture overload as well as the oddity of a two-legged semi-final in England’s second cup competition. In the other semi-final, Arsenal host Newcastle on January 7th and then visit them on February 5th. The final is set for the 16th of March at Wembley.