Plymouth win hands Liverpool shock exit

Premier League leader Liverpool was knocked out of the FA Cup by second-tier struggler Plymouth, losing 1-0 in a stunning fourth-round upset on Sunday.

It ended any hopes of a quadruple of major trophies for Liverpool, which leads the Premier League by six points with a game in hand, finished top of the revamped first stage of the Champions League and has reached the English League Cup final.

Ryan Hardie's 53rd-minute penalty proved to be the winner for Plymouth, a club from the southwest of England that is in last place in the second-tier Championship, and recently fired Wayne Rooney as its manager.

"We all came here today with a dream," Hardie said, "and we have done it."

Liverpool fielded a heavily rotated lineup, without stars like Mohamed Salah, Cody Gakpo and Virgil van Dijk, who weren't even on the bench. It still had established internationals like Darwin Nunez, Luis Diaz and Diogo Jota on the field for a frenetic ending to the game, as Plymouth was forced to defend doggedly.

At the end of a nerve-shredding nine minutes of stoppage time, Plymouth goalkeeper Conor Hazard produced a stunning save to tip over a header from Nunez, and then was in the right place to keep out another header — this time from Liverpool goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher after he came upfield to contest a corner.

In the end, the crucial moment was Harvey Elliott's handball, when he raised his hands to stop the ball reaching the penalty area leaving the referee no choice but to award the penalty. Hardie composed himself and slotted his spot kick, as Kelleher dived the opposite way.

"They were great today and made it really, really hard for us, and we couldn't cope with that," Elliott said. "It's a learning curve. It's a different game for us, because we're not used to playing these kinds of games."

Liverpool manager Arne Slot congratulated Plymouth and acknowledged his team "hardly created anything at all".

"Probably our best period was the last 10 minutes, so that tells you we kept on fighting," Slot said. "But, credit to them — (they had a) good game plan and they worked incredibly hard."

Plymouth became the first club from outside the Premier League to beat a team that is leading the top flight since Wigan eliminated Manchester City in February 2018, according statistic supplier Opta.

Defiant Postecoglou

Ange Postecoglou insisted Tottenham can still salvage its dismal season, despite completing a miserable week by crashing out of the FA Cup at Aston Villa on Sunday.

The Australian remains defiant, claiming his injury-hit team could finish the season strongly if his walking wounded return in time.

"Nothing really changes. We have a couple of weeks now where we don't have midweek games," he said.

"We had 11 first-team players out today. Take that out of any team for one game and they would struggle. We've been doing that for two-and-a-half months.

"The players are going out there and giving everything they can. It would be a lot better if they had some help."

Agencies