At full-time Jarell Quansah, his face breaking into a broad grin as the moment sank in, conducted a tour of his fellow defenders and embraced each of them in turn. Finals are nothing new to Liverpool but earning safe passage to your first is always special. They had belatedly been put under the pump on what, for long periods, was a curiously flat night in west London but Jürgen Klopp’s young brood passed the second of two very different tests.
The first of them was to maintain control, and Liverpool did that with smothering conviction until the moment Issa Diop offered Fulham a route back that had barely been signposted. Klopp had outwardly taken a gamble in starting Quansah ahead of Ibrahima Konaté, a World Cup finalist who knows at first hand that knockout ties require brain, brawn and a suspension of any nagging uncertainties. Quansah duly served up everything required, and more, in a virtuoso vindication of his manager’s faith.
