(Football news) Defending FA Cup winners Liverpool were knocked out of the competition by a brilliant Kaoru Mitoma’s stoppage-time goal which secured Brighton & Hove Albion’s passage to the fifth round with a 2-1 win at the Amex Stadium. The defeat piles on to Liverpool’s problems this season as Jurgen Klopp’s side are ninth in the Premier League and were knocked out of the Carabao Cup also. Their only chance of silverware now lies in the Champions League, but they face titleholders Real Madrid in the round-of-16.
Two weeks after their 3-0 defeat at Brighton, Liverpool started off the scoring through Harvey Elliott on 30 minutes in a very evenly matched affair as the home side responded immediately through Lewis Dunk. The tie was heading towards a replay but then Mitoma struck late on to seal a remarkable victory. Brighton midfielder Moises Caicedo was absent from the squad after the Ecuador international was given time off until his future is sorted. Following his social media post in which he said he wants to leave the club as the club rejected a £60 million offer.
Dunk scored his first goal of the season when he deflected Tariq Lamptey’s low strike from 25 yards as the ball flew past into the net. The hosts again went close to taking the lead in the 19 minutes f as Solly March had an effort well saved by Alisson. But Liverpool were delivered a late sucker punch two minutes into stoppage time as Mitoma brilliantly struck a shot that sent Liverpool out of the FA Cup. Pervis Estupinan crossed the ball to Mitoma as the Japanese forward weaved his way out of a tight space before firing past Alisson with the last kick of the game.
“This season has been nowhere near good enough,” Liverpool defender Andy Robertson said. “At the start of the year, we wanted a fresh start but that hasn’t happened. We’ve been worse. In the league, we haven’t been good enough and now we’re out of both cups.”
“Unbelievable ending. Sometimes you’ve got to win a game like that. We weren’t at our best today. Nowhere near it. But we ground it out against a top side and got the win,” Dunk told ITV Sport. “We feel like we can beat anyone on our best days and we showed here we can beat them on our not-so-good days. We’ve got everything in our squad to keep pushing on and hopefully we can go further in the competition.”
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