Seagulls’ anxious wait on Ferguson

The Brighton skipper looked as surprised as anybody to get the last touch on Tariq Lamptey’s long-range shot and deflect it past goalkeeper Alisson into the back of the net.

The second half continued in similar vein with chances at both ends, then all of a sudden Liverpool were opened up again by the most simple of Dunk passes. challenge. You can see from the player’s reaction that he knows it is a red, he is just waiting to be sent off. Somehow he remains on the field. I’m saying that as a professional footballer not as a former Brighton player.” Meanwhile Andy Robertson admits Liverpool’s season has been “nowhere near good enough” and they are getting worse.

Brighton hero Kaoru Mitoma scored a 92ndminute winner to dump holders Liverpool out of the FA Cup and Robertson was brutal in his assessment of their campaign.

The Liverpool defender said: “This season has been nowhere near good enough. 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 now. I feel sorry for the fans. They were unbelievable and we’ve let them down again.

Winning

“At a club like Liverpool, fans expect a lot and to lose with the last kick of the ball it’s disappointing. We need to start winning games. It’s easy to say but harder to fix.”

Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp insisted they were better than when they lost at Brighton in the Premier League two weeks ago.

Klopp said: “We have to improve. It doesn’t feel great, obviously. But we have to take it.

“This is really a way you can get knocked out of a cup. We want to make the final step and that is why this defeat is not especially bad in this moment. It didn’t happen but there were still steps in the right direction and we have to go from there.

“We have to improve, body language, a couple of boys have to do much better. But last game here we couldn’t have won. I think today nobody would have been surprised if we had won the game.”

Brighton boss De Zerbi said: “We can speak about the result, we are very happy because Liverpool were very strong today and we are very happy and very proud.”