FA Cup Fourth Round: Last Time Out

Written by bobbehfirmino (Twitter)

Liverpool have drawn either Norwich City or Bristol Rovers in the next round of the FA Cup, and in a new series, we will take a look at the last time we faced these teams in this competition.

Liverpool 2-1 Norwich City, FA Cup Fifth Round, Wednesday 2nd March 2022

Liverpool played Norwich City four times in the 2021/22 season, also drawing the Canaries in the League Cup and obviously playing them twice in the league. We beat them on every occasion, with the FA Cup game being the most challenging on paper. Liverpool had beaten Shrewsbury 4-1 and Cardiff City 3-1 to get to the Fifth Round, with both games being played at Anfield. Youngsters such as Max Woltman, Tyler Morton, Elijah Dixon-Bonner, Melkamu Frauendorf and Kaide Gordon were given opportunities in the previous games, the latter scoring his first goal for the club against Shrewsbury. Norwich, however, had won two away games by a goal to nil, the first against Charlton Athletic, and the second against fellow Premier League outfit Wolves. Milot Rashica and Kenny McLean scored the goals for Norwich.

Liverpool named a familiarly rotated lineup against Norwich, with Alisson in the sticks, James Milner, Ibrahima Konate, Joe Gomez and Kostas Tsimikas making up the defence, Jordan Henderson, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Curtis Jones starting in the midfield, Diogo Jota starting on the left wing, and the crucial cup pairing Divock Origi and Takumi Minamino starting in their respective striker and right wing positions. Norwich named quite a strong lineup, Tim Krul, Sam Byram, Christoph Zimmermann, Ben Gibson, Dimitris Giannoulis, Lukas Rupp, Mathias Normann, Pierre Lees-Melou, Przemysław Płacheta, Teemu Pukki and Milot Rashica.

The game started fairly quickly, with Curtis Jones striking the crossbar in the ninth minute after he made a great run, cut inside and unleashed a shot which clipped the bar and went out. Five minutes later, Norwich answered our chance with one of their own, as Rashica slid in Teemu Pukki who held off Konate and shot wide of the goal. The referee then booked Sam Byram for a foul earlier in play. The deadlock was broken ten minutes later when, in the 27th minute, Kostas Tsimikas sent a good cross into the feet of Divock Origi, who had his back turned to goal. The Belgian found the waiting and open Minamino who slotted it past Tim Krul and put the Reds in front in the cup tie. Origi and Minamino had combined again for yet another important domestic cup goal.

The game went quiet for a good bit proceeding the Minamino goal, but the Reds were on the front foot again 12 minutes later and earned a corner not long before half time. Tsimikas was on corner duties on the far left hand side, who could only find a yellow shirt. The ball was cleared out to Minamino, who was waiting in acres of space just inside of the box. To get his second goal of the game, he simply brought the clearance down and rocketed the ball into the roof of the net. Liverpool were out of sight going into the second half. They had one foot in the FA Cup Quarter-Finals.

Both sides made changes at the break, with Josh Sargent replacing Płacheta for the visitors. Jurgen Klopp decided to take off Curtis Jones at the interval, and he was replaced by Harvey Elliott, who had not long returned from injury in the previous round of the cup, scoring off the bench against Cardiff, in what was also Luis Diaz’s debut.

Norwich came out quickly from the break, in the first minute of the second half, Pukki played through Sargent on the right. The American knocked it past Gomez and drilled a shot to Alisson’s right, who couldn’t reach the ball heading past the post and wide. Oxlade-Chamberlain hit the post six minutes later, turning his defender and sending a shot to Krul’s near corner, but the ball struck the post and went out for a goal kick. Tyler Morton came on for Jordan Henderson on the hour mark in what was seeming to trickle into a comfortable Liverpool win. However, in the 76th minute, Josh Sargent found Lukas Rupp in the final third. Without any real passing option Rupp took a few more touches, edging closer to the Liverpool box and not being closed down by Joe Gomez, he swung his boot at the ball and sent a shot down to Alisson’s middle-bottom corner. He couldn’t do much as the damage had already be done and the ball met the net which Minamino scored a brace in in the first half. Norwich had a goal back with around fifteen minutes to play.

Unfortunately for Norwich, Minamino’s double in the first half was enough to see the Reds through, who were able to see out the last fifteen and proceed to the Quarter-Finals, where they would meet Championship Nottingham Forest.

Liverpool 2-1 Bristol Rovers, FA Cup Fourth Round (R), Tuesday 11th February 1992

We have to go a bit further back to find the last time we played Bristol Rovers in the FA Cup, which was actually a replay after they earned a 1-1 draw against Graeme Souness’ Reds at Twerton Park. On a Tuesday night in Liverpool, Souness named a lineup of Bruce Grobbelaar, Rob Jones, David Burrows, Steve Nicol, Mark Wright, Mike Marsh, Dean Saunders, Ray Houghton, Ronny Rosenthal, Jamie Redknapp and Steve McManaman to face Bristol Rovers. Our opposition named their lineup, Brian Parkin, Ian Alexander, Billy Clark, Steve Yates, Steve Cross, David Mehew, Justin Skinner, Andy Reece, Devon White, Carl Saunders and Tony Pounder. I don’t know either.

Bristol Rovers opened Bristol Rovers opened the scoring in the 18th minute, as a headed clearance from David Burrows landed on the chest of Carl Saunders just inside the box. He brought it down, let it bounce once and crashed it into Grobbelaar’s top left corner. Bristol Rovers were ahead in the cup tie in front of Anfield’s old Kop. It took until the 50th minute for a Liverpool response, as Steve McManaman cut inside on the right hand side and sent a Mohamed Salah-esque shot past the goalkeeper and into the left of the goal. The Kop went wild as the equaliser was found, but they weren’t done yet. ‘The Running Man’ Steve McManaman was also involved in the winner, as he picked the ball up in our half on the counter. He took it past four Bristol Rovers defenders before laying it off to Dean Saunders who slotted the ball into the net and won the game for Liverpool. He celebrated with a raised hand and fist pump at the crowd, quite fitting for the times.

Credit for photos go to Getty Images and individual photographers, no copyright is intended.