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FA Cup holders Liverpool were knocked out of the competition in stunning circumstances as Kaoru Mitoma‘s stoppage-time goal secured Brighton & Hove Albion‘s passage to the fifth round with a 2-1 win at the Amex Stadium on Sunday.
The defeat adds to Liverpool’s problems during a poor season. Jurgen Klopp’s side are ninth in the Premier League having also been knocked out of the Carabao Cup. Their only chance of silverware now lies in the Champions League, but they face title holders Real Madrid in the round-of-16.
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“This season has been nowhere near good enough,” Liverpool defender Andy Robertson said. “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.”
Two weeks on from their 3-0 defeat at Brighton, Liverpool opened the scoring through Harvey Elliott on 30 minutes in an even affair and the home side responded through Lewis Dunk 10 minutes later. The tie was seemingly heading towards a replay until Mitoma struck late on to seal a remarkable victory.
“Unbelievable ending. Sometimes you’ve got to win a game like that. We weren’t at our best today. Nowhere near it. But we ground it out against a top side and got the win,” Dunk told ITV Sport.
“We feel like we can beat anyone on our best days and we showed here we can beat them on our not-so-good days. We’ve got everything in our squad to keep pushing on and hopefully we can go further in the competition.”
Brighton midfielder Moises Caicedo was absent from the squad after sources told ESPN on Saturday that the Ecuador international was given time off until the January transfer window has passed. This followed his social media post in which he said he wants to leave the club for Arsenal, who saw an offer of £60 million rejected for his acquisition.
The two sides started at a high-tempo with Mohamed Salah seeing his strike from Liverpool’s first attack blocked off the line on four minutes before Evan Ferguson had an effort of his own hooked from the goal line.
Brighton matched Klopp’s side in terms of chances and possession in the opening exchanges, but Liverpool opened the scoring on 30 minutes through Elliott.
Salah found himself with space to charge into on the right flank, he found Elliott in behind Brighton’s recovering back line and the 19-year-old dispatched into the far corner with goalkeeper Jason Steele getting a slight touch.
But 10 minutes later, Roberto De Zerbi’s side were level as Dunk scored his first goal of the season in fortuitous circumstances.
Alexis Mac Allister‘s cross from a corner routine was headed out by Alexander Arnold but only into the path of the onrushing Tariq Lamptey, whose low strike from 25 yards took a big deflection off Dunk and flew past
The hosts went close to taking the lead 19 minutes from time as Solly March had an effort well saved by Alisson, ricocheting the ball back against the Brighton forward and out for a goal kick.
Liverpool were delivered a late sucker punch two minutes into stoppage time as Mitoma struck to send Liverpool out of the FA Cup.
Pervis Estupinan fired the ball to Mitoma and the Japan forward weaved his way to make space before firing past Alisson at the death.