Coutinho leads way to Wembley
Eastwood’s late miss allows Liverpool to claim semi-final spot
PHILIPPE COUTINHO fired Liverpool into the FA Cup semi-finals and made it a night to remember for Jordan Henderson. Liverpool’s captain provided the 70th-minute assist for Coutinho to break Blackburn Rovers’ resistance and secure a 1-0 win that sets up a Wembley date against Aston Villa a week on Sunday. It has been a dramatic 24 hours for Henderson, as his partner Beccy gave birth to their second daughter, Alba, yesterday. The 25-year-old had not slept the night before the game. Henderson said: ‘Philippe has a great football brain. It’s the easy bit giving it to him. Another bit of brilliance wins the game and gives everyone a lift.’
IT IS not often you hear this said but the goalkeeper really should have scored. Deep in injury time, with Blackburn’s FA Cup journey about to end, Simon Eastwood appeared for a corner and found the ball at his feet as it dropped from a jumble of players 12 yards out.
Eastwood, oddly, had time and, even more strangely given the melee in the area, he had space, too. He had the whole goal to aim at. He should have scored. As it happened, his right-foot shot on the turn was struck well enough but it was straight at Liverpool goalkeeper Simon Mignolet, who managed to parry the ball and then grab it as it threatened to spin over the line.
We do not blame Eastwood, of course. He is a goalkeeper. But he will wake this morning knowing that a peculiar and romantic part in FA Cup folklore could have been his.
Blackburn may not have gone on to win. They were losing 1-0 at the time and a goal so late on would only have taken them in to extra-time. Nevertheless, Liverpool will go on to a semi-final date with Aston Villa knowing that they were almost part of one of the great cup stories — and not in a good way.
Blackburn boss Gary Bowyer had looked ready to celebrate the unlikeliest of goals. He said: ‘I think it was more shock that he managed to do that and turn. It was an unbelievable turn from him, a last roll of the dice. To have pushed Liverpool like that over two games and still have a chance like that means there’s nothing but praise for my players.’
Over the course of the piece, Liverpool deserved their win. They were not wholly convincing and will need to improve markedly if they are to win this competition or make another desperate late dart towards the Champions League places.
Nevertheless, they dominated the majority of the possession and defended manfully when they had to. Without their two best defenders — the suspended pair Emre Can and Martin Skrtel — Liverpool reverted to a back four and then lost Mamadou Sakho to injury.
However, the makeshift pair of Dejan Lovren and Kolo Toure stepped up and deserve credit. Toure was wretched in the Barclays Premier League defeat at Arsenal at the weekend but was excellent here. At times, experience counts for much.
So does timing, of course, and Philippe Countinho’s was excellent last night. With 20 minutes to go, this was a game that looked as though it may be about to swing towards Blackburn.
Having just thrown on their big forward Rudy Gestede — a player who had caused Liverpool so much trouble in the first game a month ago — the Championship team were beginning to seriously trouble their opponents.
Within a minute of his arrival, Gestede outmuscled Jordan Henderson in the middle of the field and released Tom Cairney, who had to be tackled desperately by Toure. Then, from the ensuing corner, Mignolet (right) was forced to come and palm the ball away rather desperately under pressure.
For Bowyer and his team, it looked as though the perfect storm was brewing. Liverpool had enjoyed huge swathes of possession but had most of their approach play floundered against Blackburn’s defensive barricades manned by the exceptional Matt Kilgallon and Alex Baptiste.
Now, with the last quarter of the game upon them, Blackburn were scenting blood only for Coutinho to draw their sting with one of the few moments of stardust quality Liverpool managed all night.
Seeing a 70th minute corner come back to him from a defender, Coutinho had the awareness to lay the ball off to Henderson and then make a move towards the return. It was this that created the space and the rest — the control and shot across goal in to the corner — was down purely to confidence, touch and purpose.
These three qualities had been missing from much of Liverpool’s play. Daniel Sturridge, for example, was wretched. For him every second touch was a tackle and young Raheem Sterling did not do an awful lot better. Liverpool, though, do have players of high class and when people like Coutinho are around the keys to the jail cell are never far from reach.
Afterwards, Blackburn manager Bowyer did have a complaint to make. At the start of the second half, Mignolet made a diving save from Cairney and then, from the corner, an even better one from a Ben Marshall header.
Replays showed that the ball may have brushed Joe Allen’s arm before it reached the Liverpool goalkeeper. If it did, though, it did not deviate. There is no way that referee Kevin Friend could have spotted it. It would have taken cricket’s Hot Spot to reveal the thinnest of outside edges and as such it was hard to feel too much empathy with Bowyer.
On the whole, his team were excellent. So, too, were the home crowd who have rather criminally been deprived of nights like this since their club’s ownership changed hands four-and-half years ago.
Just as they did in the first game, Blackburn struggled for prolonged possession but still scared Liverpool at times. Jordan Rhodes, for example, should have scored with a header in the first half.
Liverpool, for their part, lived on half chances. They are not fluent at the moment.
They are in the last four, though. Had the goalkeeper taken better aim, it may have been different.