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Liverpool squeezed past Southampton on Wednesday night to make it to another Carabao Cup semi-final.

The Reds are the current holders of the competition having beaten Fulham at this same stage last season, before seeing off Chelsea in the final.

And it looks like it’ll be another tough route to Wembley for Liverpool, with one of Arsenal, Newcastle, Tottenham or Man United lying in wait.

Although whoever they face will make it a hard slog, the Reds will at least hopefully have their head coach back to oversee those two semis.

Arne Slot was banned from being on the touchline against Southampton after picking up a third yellow card of the campaign against Fulham at Anfield on Saturday.

But while Slot let the Liverpool coaching staff lead the way pitch side, he did speak after the game to share a song he’d heard the travelling Kop singing during a battling display.

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Slot raved about Sipke Hulshoff and John Heitinga in the lead-up to the Southampton game and on Wednesday it was Hulshoff who was the main voice on the side line.

But the Liverpool head coach was clearly still involved in proceedings as he sat in the stands at St Mary’s.

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On the night, much of the focus was on the Liverpool academy players, with Slot choosing to give a full debut to Trey Nyoni, while James McConnell and Jayden Danns both played some part, too.

And when asked about the youngsters during his post-match press conference, Slot highlighted Liverpool’s supporters’ song about Trent Alexander-Arnold as evidence of the expectation to blood youth in the first-team.

READ MORE: Liverpool have done something for the first time in 28 years after Carabao Cup win vs Southampton

“I think this club is known for this,” he said.

“I heard the fans singing for Trent, the song about the Scouser, I don’t know exactly what they sing, but it probably has to do with him coming from the academy as well.

“We have already a few starters from our academy and to see these players that train with us on a daily basis, we know their quality, so it’s nice to see that they show [it] on a Premier League level that they can easily play at this level.”

It must have been an odd evening for Slot to be up in the stands while he let Hulshoff take the reigns in the Carabao Cup.

Given the rotated nature of the Liverpool team, it fed into a slightly weird feeling all round about the match.

Thankfully, Slot has now served out his full ban for time being, though, meaning the 46-year-old will back in the technical area for Sunday’s trip to Tottenham.

Hulshoff was spotted going mad at Darwin Nunez during his brief stint on the touchline and it would be interesting to hear the assistant’s thoughts on his game in charge.

But as he sinks back into the background and lets Slot take the lead, it will likely be a while before we see Hulshoff in a similar role again.
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