Carlsberg Don't Do Perfect Nights Of Football. Carling Do.

Liverpool out

Roy Hodgson is let down by his players as Liverpool crashed out against Northampton, who are currently 17th in the fourth tier of English football.

Liverpool took an early lead before a Northampton equaliser took the game to extra time. Northampton took the lead before Liverpool pegged one back to take it to penalties. In front of the Kop, Liverpool lost on penalties.

“I don’t think we came anywhere near what I hoped to see apart from in the last 15 minutes of extra-time when we made a superb effort after going 2-1 down,” said Hodgson. “When it goes to penalties and you are at home and in front of the Kop your hope is that at least the players will have the composure and confidence to win the penalty shoot-out but we didn’t. These players have to accept responsibility. I accept responsibility for changing a lot of players in the team, I did it because I honestly thought the players I put on the field were good enough to win the game and they weren’t. The obvious conclusion to that was I shouldn’t have changed that many players but we should have been strong enough to get a result. We must all take our responsibility. I am just bitterly disappointed that the team I had so much faith in did not repay that faith this evening with the exception of one or two performances. We wanted to do well in the Carling Cup and we haven’t done. We were given a kind draw against a team three leagues below us, were expected to win and when you don’t you can expect to be criticised from the top downwards. It is a major setback for the club.”

City out

Manchester City were beaten by newly promoted West Brom. Shay Given (£5.9m), James Milner (£26m), Jo (£18m), Pablo Zabaleta (£6.5m), Santa Cruz (£17.5m), Patrick Vieira, Adam Johnson (£7m) and David Silva (£26m), were amongst the players Mancini played.

After going ahead with less than 20 minutes played, they conceded two goals in two minutes in the second half.

Chelsea out

Thanks to the dreadful goalkeeping of Turnball, Chelsea found themselves with a mountain to climb. Things went from bad to worse when substitute Kalou was stretchered off. Then, having made all their substitutions, Benayoun was injured, leaving Chelsea to play the remaining 25 minutes with ten men.

However, thanks to a dive in the area from Alex, Chelsea were able to draw level and looked to go in to extra time. However, Ameobi put Newcastle ahead in the last minute of normal time to knock Chelsea out.

Who’s in?
After beating Championship side Scunthorpe, with Michael Owen grabbing two, Gibson scoring a beauty, Smalling getting his first United goal and Park Ji-Sung blasting one in, United are favourites to retain the League Cup again. Arsenal and Aston Villa are probably the biggest threats.