Liverpool knocked out; City advance in FA Cup
london — Liverpool were knocked out of the FA Cup by Championship club Wolves as Tottenham Hotspur survived a potential giantkilling of their own by twice coming from behind in a 4-3 win over fourth-tier Wycombe Wanderers at White Hart Lane.
Seven-times FA Cup winners Liverpool lost 2-1 at home to second-tier Wolves as the Merseysiders’ season went from bad to worse.
Defeat meant Liverpool, 10 points behind Premier League leaders Chelsea — their next opponents at Anfield on Tuesday — had been knocked out of two cup competitions in four days following their 2-0 aggregate loss to Southampton in Wednesday’s League Cup semi-final return.
Wolves needed less than a minute to go ahead, Richard Stearman opening the scoring for the Midlands side when he headed in a free-kick.
And four minutes before halftime, they doubled their lead when Andreas Weimann finished an excellent counter-attack.
But, having rarely threatened, a much-changed Liverpool pulled a goal back when Divock Origi scored from close range with four minutes left following a corner.
That, however, was good as it got for Liverpool, who have now won just one of their last eight matches in all competition.
“We were very bad,” Klopp told BT Sport. “We started badly and it didn’t really get better... There are not a lot of good things to say about this game.”
Raheem Sterling, Leroy Sane and Yaya Toure scored as Manchester City secured their place in the FA Cup fifth round with a 3-0 win at Crystal Palace on Saturday.
Gabriel Jesus, City’s £27 million signing from Palmeiras, marked his full debut by setting up Sterling for City’s opener shortly before half-time at Selhurst Park.
Sane and Toure struck late on to rubberstamp a win that got Pep Guardiola’s side back to winning ways after their 4-0 thrashing at Everton and last weekend’s 2-2 draw with Tottenham Hotspur.
Defeat ended Palace’s hopes of emulating last season’s run to the final and leaves them with only their fight to avoid Premier League relegation to focus on.
Sam Allardyce has won just one of his first eight games since succeeding Alan Pardew as Palace manager, but having made six changes, he clearly had half an eye on Tuesday’s trip to Bournemouth.
Guardiola made five changes, which included a first appearance for captain Vincent Kompany since City’s 2-1 win at the same ground on November 19, when the Belgian centre-back suffered a knee injury.
Elsewhere, Chelsea kept their double hopes alive with a comfortable 4-0 fourth-round win at home to fellow west London club Brentford. Wilian gave Chelsea a 14thminute lead with when he lifted a free-kick over the wall and into the top corner.
Minutes later, Antonio Conte’s men were 2-0 up when Pedro scored at the far post following Michy Batshuayi’s defence-splitting pass at the far post.
Branislav Ivanovic made it 3-0 before Batshuayi’s penalty nine minutes from time completed the scoring. FA Cup holders Manchester United travel to Wigan for a fourth-round tie on Sunday when top-flight sides Watford and Hull are away to Millwall and Fulham respectively. Non-league Sutton are away to Championship club Leeds in a round of FA Cup matches that started with Premier League Leicester’s 2-2 draw away to second-tier Derby on Friday. —