Gabriele Marcotti

AND we thought it wasn’t really going to matter. Because, well, it normally doesn’t. Ordinarily, for all the pomp and Wembley circumstance the League Cup doesn’t leave much of a trace. Manchester United won it last season and then went on a run where they won just two of seven in all competitions. The year before that, Manchester City lifted the trophy and then won one of their next five. Chelsea in their title-winning campaign? The failed to win two of their next three, getting knocked out of the Champions League in the process. City in 2013-14, when they went on to win the title? They lost their next two, getting eliminated from the FA Cup (at home by – ahem – Wigan) and the Champions League.

IT was vintage Jose Mourinho as he opened up both barrels to the press when it came to the issue of Paul Pogba.

LIVERPOOL travel to Southampton today and Mohamed Salah is, rightly, among the leading Footballer of the Year candidates, alongside Kevin De Bruyne and Harry Kane. He is the second-leading goalscorer in the Premier League and if he scores just two more in any competition between now and the end of the season, he will become only the 13th player in the history of Liverpool to hit the 30-goal mark in a single campaign. And that is all the more remarkable when you consider he is not his team’s main attacking terminus.

SOMETIMES it is all about the packaging. And it doesn’t take much to stoke enthusiasm. Heading into the weekend, Arsenal were sixth in the Premier League on 42 points. Never have they been this low – in points and league position – at this stage of the season in the Wenger era. But no matter. They add Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Henrikh Mkhitaryan in the transfer window, plus two transfer specialists for Wenger to work with (or for? or above? Time will tell…) and suddenly it is a new dawn.

IF reports are to be believed, Manchester City will sign French centre-back Aymeric Laporte from Athletic Bilbao tomorrow or Tuesday. Laporte has a buy-out clause in the region of £57 million and, while he hasn’t necessarily kicked on since bursting on to the scene as a much-hyped 19-year-old four years ago, he very much fits a certain mould.

IF there is one fantasy we can dispense with once and for all, it is that football clubs are necessarily loss-making entities. It used to be that you owned one out of love, passion, a sense of responsibility, ego or ancillary benefits to your other businesses, but never really because you planned on making money. That is no longer the case with the numbers speaking volumes.

IF football transfers are often a game of bluff and double-bluff, with a dose of mischief thrown in, then Alexis Sanchez’s situation is a classic case.

MAYBE it is a trend. Maybe in the week a book comes out suggesting that many in the White House believe the president of the United States acts like a nine-year-old child, it is fitting that a number of Premier League managers are following suit.

ALL you can do is throw your hands up and conclude Jurgen Klopp must really like him. I mean, really, really like him. To the point of believing he is the only one out there or, at least, the only attainable one out there.

It is apparent in Raphael Honigstein’s biography of Jurgen Klopp (“Bring the Noise”) that one of the challenges of managing a club like Liverpool is the weight of history. The argument is that there is a disconnect between where the club should be given the five European Cups and 18 English titles and where it can be, given the current revenue and landscape of English football, with heavily-resourced rivals who simply weren’t around in Liverpool’s hey-day.