• 11 months ago
Will Rooney reports from the Emirates Stadium as Liverpool move into the FA Cup fourth round.
Transcript
00:00 Full time here at the Emirates Stadium, we finished Arsenal 0 Liverpool 2.
00:04 Liverpool into the fourth round of the FA Cup.
00:07 That was a performance of guts, it was dogged, it was resolute.
00:12 All that you wanted to see from Liverpool, they are going to challenge for the Premier League title.
00:16 The Egan clock plagued this down but don't get me wrong, that was a massive win for Liverpool in the Premier League title race.
00:23 Albeit this was in the FA Cup because it was a real psychological boost for Liverpool and a psychological blow for Arsenal.
00:28 Liverpool were out but without several key players including Virgil van Dijk who went down ill before the game.
00:34 Mo Salah of course went off to the AFCON Cup of Nations with Egypt,
00:37 Wataru Endo was away, Dominic Csaboslai was injured.
00:40 Also still on the injury list, the likes of Andy Robertson, Costa Simacas.
00:44 Liverpool had to soak up a lot of pressure here, they had two senior players on the bench.
00:51 Two senior outfield players, Diogo de Jost and Ryan Gravenbeer.
00:54 In the first half, Arsenal were pretty dominant.
00:57 Liverpool rode the luck a little bit but they were also very close to the back.
01:01 Arsenal tried to get in a few times, created a few chances.
01:03 Rhys Nelson went around Alisson Becker but he was forced wide.
01:08 Martin Overgaard rattled the bar.
01:11 Alisson Becker produced a couple of saves but Liverpool had a couple of opportunities themselves to be fair in the first half.
01:16 Darwin Nunes headed wide and then on the stroke of half time, Trent Alexander-Arnold rattled the crossbar.
01:21 Jürgen Klopp made a couple of tweaks at half time to his team, changed things around, changed his set-up and that really ripped the walls.
01:28 Arsenal didn't really have a lot of chances in the second half.
01:31 It was Liverpool who had the better of things to be quite frank.
01:34 They were really hurting Arsenal on the counter-attack.
01:36 Luis Diaz on the right was showing his pace, Darwin Nunes moved to the left.
01:39 Then it was that man Diogo de Jost who came on off the bench for the third successive game after his hamstring injury and made the difference yet again.
01:46 Liverpool had to wait until the 80th minute to break the score.
01:49 Obviously fairly fortuitous, Leif Trent Alexander-Arnold whipped in a free kick and the Arsenal defender headed into his own net.
01:57 Liverpool fans behind the goal were sent into raptures.
02:00 It was a case of 'can Liverpool hold on?' and indeed they did.
02:02 They were carrying a threat on the counter-attack and they got the second through Luis Diaz.
02:06 Liverpool launched that counter, Diogo de Jost playing it out wide to Diaz and he fired home for Liverpool to move to the fourth round of the FA Cup.
02:14 The quadruple is still on, I say that tongue in cheek but they've got potentially a bigger chance of doing it than they did a couple of years ago.
02:24 Of course, they fell two games short in the Premier League and the Champions League.
02:29 I don't think any of these players would be thinking like that at all, I don't think any Liverpool fans would be thinking like that whatsoever.
02:36 Liverpool now into the fourth round of the FA Cup, we've got an FA Cup semi-final against Fulham, the first leg to come on Anfield in a couple of days' time.
02:46 Will Virgil van Dijk be back for that? Unsure but Ibrahim Ikenati was Manolo Matthews' outstanding tonight, made so many blocks.
02:54 Gerard Kwanca just continues to grow the 20-year-old centre-back, really been a revelation for Liverpool.
02:59 They've saved themselves in the transfer market, he's been superb.
03:03 It was just a performance of gut and doggedness really, to say Liverpool into the hat and Arsenal nailed Liverpool too.

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