Stoke City vs Liverpool: Semi-final record fires Mark Hughes' ambition ahead of Capital One Cup meeting

Mark Hughes was a serial winner in semi-finals as a player but has yet to taste victory as a manager

Mark Hughes was sacked by Stoke City in January (Getty)

Stoke manager also recalls City sacking after reaching last four

As a footballer, semi-finals were never a problem for Mark Hughes. He played in nine and won them all.

As a manager, they have proved more problematic. He lost three with Blackburn and, as he points out: “I took Manchester City to a League Cup semi-final but I wasn’t allowed to take charge of it because they sacked me. It was their first one for about 40 years, by the way.”

Stoke’s Capital One Cup semi-final against Liverpool will be his fourth – or fifth if you count Manchester City in 2010, which he does.

Half-a-dozen years on, his dismissal still stings. Hughes was in charge when the money from Abu Dhabi began rolling in and a £32m payment for Robinho was signed off on day one. There will always be a part of him that will wonder what he might have achieved had he hung on.

Of his roles since leaving City, Fulham was a job well done on thin resources, while Queen’s Park Rangers was the kind of fiasco that seems to stain most CVs, however carefully constructed.

With this Stoke side that has beaten both Manchester clubs at the Britannia Stadium, overcome Chelsea twice this season and turned Steven Gerrard’s farewell to the English game last season into a humiliation, he has a chance of matching at least some of his ambitions.

Previous League Cup encounters at Stoke

Stoke City 1-2 Liverpool, October 2011

Luis Suarez performed at his menacing best in this fourth-round tie, scoring twice as Liverpool came from behind to win. Stoke went ahead just before the break when Kenwyne Jones headed in Jon Walters’ cross. Liverpool’s response came in the 54th minute, as Suarez curled a stunning shot past Thomas Sorensen, and their winner arrived with five minutes left, Suarez heading home Jordan Henderson’s volleyed cross.

Stoke 0-8 Liverpool, November 2000

Robbie Fowler’s hat-trick capped Liverpool’s biggest away win as they eased into the last eight. Christian Ziege, Vladimir Smicer and Markus Babbel struck before Fowler took centre stage. He nodded home to make it 4-0, and, after Sami Hyypia made it five, Fowler broke down the left for Danny Murphy to score. Fowler fired home himself before his late penalty completed the misery for the third-tier side.

Stoke 2-3 Liverpool (Liverpool won 5-4 on aggregate), October 1991

Steve McManaman, Dean Saunders and Mark Walters scored for Graeme Souness’s side at the Victoria Ground after the first leg of the second-round tie finished 2-2.

“As a player, I remember those finals and the pride you get from representing your club and winning things with them,” he said. “I’d love to do it as a manager, but it is more difficult.

“There is a debate about British managers and the chances they have. If you look at the top jobs over the years, Sir Alex Ferguson was at Manchester United for such a long time, Arsène Wenger is still in situ, Chelsea don’t appoint British managers and Manchester City was an opportunity that was taken away from me.

“A foreign manager has the chance to build their CV domestically, so that when people look at it they can see they have won cups and leagues. For a British manager it is a bit more difficult.”

When Gérard Houllier was appointed manager of Liverpool in 1998, Peter Reid, who was struggling with Sunderland’s limited budget, remarked that he would like to see Houllier manage Coventry. Stoke would once have fallen into that category but, with television revenues flooding the Premier League, clubs once thought middling can afford quite a bit – and Hughes has spent his share very well.

In their final match of 2015, at Everton, they contributed to one of the games of the season, a 4-3 win featuring superb performances from such untraditional Stoke players as Xherdan Shaqiri, Marko Arnautovic and Bojan Krkic.

“They are game-changers and the teams just below the elite now have game-changers in their ranks,” said Hughes. “We certainly have.”

Robbie Fowler completes his hat-trick in 2000 (Getty)

The question is whether he can keep them at the Britannia Stadium. The January transfer window is open and there is plenty of speculation swirling around. Hughes denied there was a release clause in Bojan’s contract that would be activated by a £10m bid, although he was vaguer when asked if Barcelona have the same buy-back option for the Spaniard as they have for Everton’s Gerard Deulofeu.

“There is no intention or desire from Bojan or his people for him to leave from the conversations I have had,” said Hughes. “He is very happy. It is just a normal January story really.”

Luis Suarez scores Liverpool’s second in 2011 (Getty)

It is what happens in the final at the end of February that really matters. Hughes is a hard enough football man to say that lost semi-finals are not much chaff. “Nobody ever remembers losing finalists,” he added. “So, if we did get to the final, it would be about winning it.”

But with Geoff Cameron having had his suspension for pushing West Bromwich Albion’s Claudio Yacob overturned, something that pleasantly surprised his manager, perhaps the tide is running Hughes’ way. He understands instinctively what silverware does to a career.

“Players, and people who surround the players, make decent money by virtue of being in the Premier League,” he said. “So whether you are a player or a manager, there comes a point where it isn’t about the money, it is about making your mark.”

Liverpool may have won the League Cup more than any other club but it occupies a deeper place in Stoke’s history. It is the only trophy they have ever won and the men who won it in 1972, overcoming a Chelsea side that played with the strut and swagger of the King’s Road, have never needed to buy a drink in the Potteries again.

When asked if his players understood the significance of the moment, Hughes replied: “Yes, absolutely. There are a group of ex-players who are rightly lauded for what they did. We would love to do the same.”