National media reaction after Liverpool suffered a shock FA Cup exit at the hands of Plymouth Argyle
Liverpool suffered a shock FA Cup exit to Championship strugglers Plymouth Argyle on Sunday Ryan Hardie’s penalty was the difference at Home Park. The Reds struggled throughout against a side ranked 43 places below them in the English football ladder.
Arne Slot’s side only had four shots on target and did not start to threaten goalkeeper Conor Hazard until the dying embers. While Slot named a much-changed side, having left a significant number of his senior stars at home, it was no excuse as a below-par Liverpool found themselves victim to a classic FA Cup giant-killing.
With the national media in place at Home Park to witness a big cup upset, here’s what they made of the Reds’ dismal defeat…
Oliver Holt of the Daily Mail believed Slot made the ‘first mistake’ of his Liverpool reign against Plymouth.
He wrote: “If anyone could have predicted where Liverpool’s pursuit of the Quadruple might end this season, many might have bet on the Bernabeu, the Nou Camp, Munich’s Allianz Arena or perhaps Wembley Stadium. Instead, it ended here, at Home Park, in front of the Green Army.
It ended against an Argyle side that has only won once in the last three months and sits rock bottom of the Championship. It ended against a team that seemed to lurch from one misfortune to another when Rooney was in charge here.
Liverpool’s challenge for those four trophies foundered on the rocks that were the heroic Argyle central defenders Maksym Talovierov, from Ukraine, and Nikola Katic, from Bosnia, who were so obdurate and determined they could have repelled that armada all by themselves. They were Plymouth’s men of war.
Liverpool’s manager Arne Slot has made a flawless start to his time as a manager in English football since he succeeded Jurgen Klopp as Liverpool boss and this was the first time that English football bit him and bit him hard.
His team selection was his first mistake since he arrived from Holland. It is easy to sympathise with that selection because his side are chasing honours on so many fronts. Something has to give. He has to rest players some time. But the scale of his changes left him and his team badly exposed.
When the final whistle blew after nine minutes of added time, it signalled the shock of the round and what will almost certainly be the shock of the season. The bottom of the Championship beating the top of the Premier League isn’t supposed to happen in modern football.”
He wrote: “And on this whistle, unleash chaos. Nobody really knows how Plymouth Argyle managed to survive those nine minutes of injury time at the end, those interminable minutes when hearts were pounding and nerves were shredding and it felt like not just Conor Hazard’s goal, not just Home Park, but Plymouth itself, was under siege.
Just as nobody had really seen this coming: the team rooted to the foot of the Championship, hosting perhaps the best team in the world right now, and sending them spectacularly to the canvas. Ryan Hardie’s penalty early in the second half was the difference between the sides, and even then nobody really believed. But as those nine minutes ticked away, one of the greatest shocks in the modern history of the FA Cup felt agonisingly close and agonisingly elusive all at once…
For Slot and his players there will be pressing questions to answer in the coming days, questions about selection and application, a weakened lineup that should still have got the job done. Instead Liverpool played like exactly what they were: a side that had barely played together before. For a team basically built on chemistry, understanding instincts honed and shared, this is a bigger problem than it would be somewhere else.
Luis Díaz and Diogo Jota struggled for rhythm against a rugged Plymouth back five. Federico Chiesa looked lost on the right wing. An early injury to Joe Gomez was suboptimal. Darwin Núñez offered little off the bench. And with the senior players rested, there was little firepower to add once the first wave had failed so comprehensively.”
He wrote: “Quadruple no more. Not this season. Yes, Arne Slot made 10 changes, retaining only goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher. Yes, he left big guns such as Mohamed Salah, Cody Gakpo and Virgil van Dijk at home. Yes, he lost stand-in captain Joe Gomez early on to yet another injury and, yes, the Liverpool head coach is prioritising other competitions.
The games are coming thick and fast and intensely. This tie was sandwiched between overturning the Carabao Cup semi-final deficit to Tottenham Hotspur last Thursday and facing Everton away in the last ever Merseyside derby at Goodison Park in the Premier League on Wednesday. Slot will argue something had to give and later revealed that, while Curtis Jones was on the bench, the midfielder had not recovered and could not come on. But try telling that to the Green Army…
“Usually, in such upsets, there are some glaring misses or outstanding saves and huge slices of luck, but while Plymouth defended wonderfully there were none until two outstanding saves by goalkeeper Conor Hazard deep into injury time. Liverpool created little of note until the 89th minute – when James McConnell shot wide from the edge of the penalty area with Hazard stranded…
This was the worst Liverpool have played in their 30 matches under Slot, who cut an increasingly agitated figure on the touchline; goaded by those Plymouth fans who lapped up his agitation. It was only their fourth defeat of the season in all competitions and, after the Premier League loss at home to Nottingham Forest last September, the only one that mattered.
