(Football news) A 13th minute goal by Harvey Elliott was enough for Liverpool to progress into the fourth round of the FA Cup, defeating hosts Wolverhampton Wanderers 1-0 at the Molineux Stadium. The result means that the Reds will take on Brighton in their fourth round match, an opponent who defeated them last Saturday and Jurgen Klopp will be desperate to win the FA Cup, which is the only realistic chance for silverware for the Reds. Heading into this match, Liverpool had failed to win any of their last three games in all competitions but a heavily changed side managed to get a desperate result this time around, before the Reds take on Chelsea in their next match.
Elliott found the back of the net through a long range strike that caught goalkeeper Jose Sa from his line in the 13th minute. The game also experienced a power cut just when Adama Traore was about to send in a cross and Liverpool showed greater fluency between the two sides, especially in the first half. Wolves’ Raul Jimenez had a close range header deflected late on but the hosts could not manage to level the score to remain in the fixture.
In team news, Wolves made two changes to the team that drew against Liverpool at Anfield with first-choice goalkeeper Jose Sa coming in alongside the experienced Joao Moutinho. As for Liverpool, Ibrahima Konate, Thiago and Cody Gakpo were the only players to retain their spot in the starting lineup while the likes of Alisson, Mohamed Salah and Andy Robertson were dropped to the bench.
“Everybody got that reaction, it was the reaction we needed to show,” he said after the third-round replay win. “The game was completely different to last time. I’m really happy with that. All the individual performances were good. It was good and I said to the boys after the game that’s how it feels when you play well and win. That’s why we are quite happy. It was a good game, we only get into the next round but we wanted to go to the next round, it was an important sign that these things are possible.
“There’s a massive game coming up at the weekend (against Chelsea), if we had played another game like the last one I’m not sure what people would have thought before they arrived at the stadium. We were compact, together and we had good challenges. We played really good football and scored an exceptional goal. Harvey saw something not a lot of people have seen. I wouldn’t have expected a shot at that moment.” – Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp
“Looking at the two matches, we deserved more. We have scored more goals than the opponent in the first match. All of you know why. We suffered a strange goal in the first half. We start playing well in the first minutes. Afterwards we suffer emotionally. We were out of the match until half-time. We changed some things. In the second half they put it all on the pitch, a big effort, character, personality. Unfortunately for us, we didn’t score. We had a big [dream] to continue in the cup. Now we have to put 100 per cent of the focus on the Premier League. Today we lost and I am sad.”
Also read: What needs to change at Liverpool after consistently bad performances?
