Newcastle United

The man Arne Slot will compete against for his first trophy in England is, of course, Eddie Howe.

The Newcastle boss, who masterminded his side's semi-final win over Arsenal on Wednesday, is speaking to the media now.

I've just been taking a look at Arne Slot's stats as Liverpool manager.

It really has been a quite remarkable start for the Dutchman at Anfield.

He has lost just three of his 37 matches in charge - and two of them were effectively meaningless, with Liverpool overturning their 1-0 Carabao Cup first-leg defeat by Tottenham last night, and already qualified for the Champions League last 16 when beaten by PSV Eindhoven last week.

29 wins. A 78.3% win rate. An average of 2.5 points per match. These are silly numbers.

We'll hear from Liverpool boss Arne Slot a little later this morning.

But, speaking last night, the Dutchman said his side are already clear how difficult the EFL Cup final will be against a "very impressive" Newcastle United.

The two clubs played out a thrilling 3-3 draw in the Premier League at St James' Park earlier in the season and will face off in the reverse fixture two weeks prior to the final at Wembley.

Simon Stone
BBC Sport's chief football news reporter

Manchester United head coach Ruben Amorim said what he thought about the Marcus Rashford situation yesterday when he said 'thankfully' it was now Unai Emery who had to answer questions about the England forward.

Amorim picked Rashford in just one matchday squad after dropping him for the Manchester derby in the middle of December - and then left him on the bench as United slipped to defeat against Newcastle at Old Trafford.

He accepts the 27-year-old was simply not going to be part of his plans.

"I couldn’t get Marcus to see the way you’re supposed to play football and to train the way I see it," he said.

"Sometimes you have one player who is really good with one coach and the same player with another coach is different.

"I just wish the best to Rashford and Unai Emery, and hope they can connect because he’s a very good player."

Manchester United boss Ruben Amorim spoke yesterday, with his side in FA Cup action tonight, but a part of his news conference was embargoed until later.

He had some honest words to say about Marcus Rashford.

Dion Dublin
Former Aston Villa striker on the Football Daily podcast

I believe that Salah plays as wide as possible, he has his heels on the chalk, he stays and waits for these runs. He just waits to see what's going on, he assess it. He makes the pitch as wide as possible, which gives him options. The guy is just a genius, he's on a different level.

Keep your reactions to Liverpool's Carabao Cup win over Tottenham coming in, and any other pressing Friday football thoughts - aside from shots on target - that you want to discuss during today's live text.

We've got Andoni Iraola and Eddie Howe on the way.

Tottenham's issues can't be analysed completely without also addressing their injury problems, with 10 first-team players out and Richarlison being forced off with an apparent calf issue in the first half last night.

They have suffered almost 30 different injuries so far this season.

Among them, James Maddison is missed in the middle of the park and, with forwards Dominic Solanke and Brennan Johnson on the list of casualties too.

Liverpool overpowered Spurs' three-man midfield, with Yves Bissouma and Rodrigo Bentancur enduring a tough evening.

On average this season, Tottenham have registered 13.9 shots per 90 minutes, with 5.6 on target. At Anfield, they had five shots, with none on target, just eight touches in the opposition box compared to Liverpool's 55, and 41 successful passes in the final third compared to the Reds' 147.

Dion Dublin
Former Aston Villa striker on the Football Daily podcast

I didn't like the body language from the Spurs players, they didn't seem to want to go forward, they didn't seem to want to go back they were just jogging around. With Liverpool's attitude towards winning, they made it look like a training game.

Oh George.

We'll be hearing from a lot of managers over the course of the next few hours before this weekend's FA Cup fourth round ties.

The first of those fixtures takes place tonight, when Manchester United host Leicester City at Old Trafford at 20:00 GMT.

Here are the clubs whose managers we are expecting to hear from - and when:

• 09:00 - Bournemouth
• 09:30 - Newcastle
• 10:15 - Liverpool
• 10:30 - Tottenham
• 11:00 - Chelsea
• 13:00 - Ipswich
• 13:30 - Crystal Palace
• 13:30 - Wolves

• 13:45 - Everton
• 14:00 - Man City
• 14:00 - Aston Villa

Image source, Getty Images

MOVING ON.

Martin, Liverpool: I'm astounded that people are asking what 'on target' means in regard to Son hitting the bar. You get nothing for hitting the bar so Son clearly missed the target of, you know... the goal.

Josh, Essex: I can’t believe there are people out there who think hitting the frame of the goal is ‘on target’. The target of football is scoring a goal so if the ball hits the post and doesn’t go in it’s not ‘on target’ is it, really isn’t difficult.

That one would go down as an own-goal, Mike.

We may have, quite unexpectedly, opened a can of worms with this shots on/off target statistic. I can safely say I did not expect this to be one of our discussion points today.

Stephen Kelly
Former Tottenham defender on the Football Daily podcast

[Tottenham] were caught between two stars, I think Liverpool were more aggressive. The amount of times where Spurs gave the ball away, just passing to poor areas, if you do that against a poorer side, you'd still get punished.

I think Liverpool, as soon as they got their goal, they were able to ramp it up, they were able to control the game, Tottenham didn't have a shot on target. Overall, it looked like men against boys.

Before the two Carabao Cup semi-final legs, the previous meeting between these two saw Liverpool win a nine-goal thriller 6-3 at Tottenham in the Premier League.

While this was another heavy defeat, last night's Spurs performance felt a far cry from that one.

Sticking to their 'Ange-ball' principles, in the 6-3 loss Tottenham were far too open at the back but they were at least set up to cause some damage.

On Thursday, it was hard to see where a goal would come from. The decision to sit deeper and attempt to defend what they had did not pay off for Spurs, who were behind on aggregate from the 51st minute.

Ultimately, however, the outcome was no different.