Two teams that could do with a break from their Premier League troubles but also have more important things to be worrying about met in the FA Cup third round.
Jürgen Klopp made four changes to the side that lost to Brentford. Joël Matip replaced the injured Virgil van Dijk, Andy Robertson and Jordan Henderson came back in for Kostas Tsimikas and Harvey Elliott, while Cody Gakpo made his debut in place of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. Liverpool set up in their usual 4-3-3 formation.
Julen Lopetegui made nine changes to the team that drew with Aston Villa, with Ruben Neves and Nathan Collins the only men continuing on. Wolverhampton Wanderers lined up in a 4-4-2 shape.
It wasn’t a particularly eventful opening to the game. Wolves dropped back into a narrow 4-4-2, blocking up the centre, so Liverpool passed from side to side, but struggled to move the ball into goalscoring positions in the centre.
Liverpool would hand Wolves an easy lead when Alisson Becker passed the ball straight to Gonçalo Guedes in the box, allowing the Portuguese to finish from a few metres out.
Despite offering little, focussing on defending, Wolves still had some success stretching Liverpool’s midfield. This has been an issue for several years, and Liverpool’s midfielders simply no longer have the legs to cover it. Pull one forward to defend and Wolves could exploit a massive gap through the middle, but several times they would simply pull Liverpool across to one side then switch play to the other flank, with Liverpool’s three midfielders unable to effectively cover the width of the pitch.
This backfired just before half-time though. Wolves defended a throw-in on one side, with Collins booting it out to the other flank, however the ball fell to Trent Alexander-Arnold rather than a Wolves shirt. He broke froward on the counter and crossed to Darwin Nuñez at the back post, who volleyed the ball home.
Liverpool then took the lead shortly after half-time. Gakpo cut inside and picked out a pass in behind and, although Mohamed Salah was initially offside, Toti’s botched header to cut out the move meant the start of a new one, so Salah was now onside as the ball fell to him. The Egyptian took a touch, smoothly twisting to open up his body shape and protect the ball from Jonny Castro, before finishing into the corner.
Wolves equalised mid-way through the half though. Ibrahima Konaté cleared the ball following a throw-in, only for Collins to head it back in the opposite direction. Once again Liverpool’s midfield was left stretched, pulled across to the left for the throw-in, leaving substitute Hwang Hee-chan free to pick up the ball, turn and run at the defence without a Liverpool midfielder ever getting close. Alexander-Arnold initially backed off, shaping to defend a pass wide to Rayan Aït-Nouri on the overlap, but as Hwang advanced and it became clear Henderson wasn’t getting across in time, he turned as if to confront the Korean, only to let him dribble straight past him without making any attempt to stop him. Hwang played a one-two with Matheus Cunha and his shot deflected awkwardly off of Konaté as the Frenchman slid to block it, bobbling under Alisson who was caught wrong-footed.
Wolves would switch to a 5-4-1 shape with a quarter of an hour left to play, adding an extra body to the box as Liverpool continued to pass the ball around aimlessly before looping a cross into the box.
Wolves appeared to take the lead following a corner. They won the corner by once again pulling apart Liverpool’s midfield and breaking through the gaps, and although the initial ball was repelled and Matheus Nunes’ second cross was cut out by Thiago Alcântara, the loose ball fell directly at the feet of Hwang as Gakpo stood ball-watching, leaving him with time to take a touch and feed the ball to Toti to backheel across the line. The goal was disallowed for offside due to the pass played back to Nunes after he took the corner, however VAR was unable to find an angle of it, meaning they had to stand by the linesman’s decision to rule it out, although it would appear Nunes was actually well onside.
It was a match between two sides not really good enough to create much from any distinct patterns of play, yet somehow also bad enough to concede four – arguably five – goals between them, resulting in a replay that surely no one is looking forward to.
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