LONDON: Liverpool finished on the wrong end of the biggest upset of the fourth round of the FA Cup in losing 1-0 at Plymouth. The scale of the surprise was underlined by their respective league positions with Liverpool running away at the top of the Premier League and Plymouth bottom of the second tier and favourites for relegation.

Tottenham were also knocked out, less embarrassingly, after losing 2-1 away to Aston Villa, prompting further social media anger at the management of Ange Postecoglou.

Arne Slot, at Home Park, took the usual calculated ramble of every top tier manager in sending out a weakened team. He made nine changes from the starting line-up of the midweek League Cup win over Tottenham with only with only leftback Costas Tsimikas and forwards Diogo Jota and Luiz Diaz from a standard line-up.

Slot sent on Darwin Nunez after an hour to spark the usual Liverpool recovery but even that was in vain.

The decisive goal was a penalty converted by Ryan Hardie early in the second half after handball by Harvey Elliott. Scottish forward Hardie, whose son was the team mascot, said: “I asked him for the score and he said we’d win 10. I don’t know where he got that from but we’re happy with one.”

Liverpool poured forward for the rest of the match and 20-year-old James McConnell shot badly wide in the closing minutes with keeper Conor Hazard out of his goal. Hazard redeemed himself with a superb save from Jota in the nine minutes of stoppage time. Opposite number Caoimhin Kelleher went up for a free kick in the last minute only to see Hazard push a Nunez effort over the bar then save another header from Tsimikas.

Plymouth have conceded more goals (63) than any other team in the four divisions but Hazard and Bosnian centre back Nikola Katic were defiantly outstanding. Austrian manager Miron Muslic, who took over from sacked Wayne Rooney at the start of January, said: “We had intensity, desire and a little bit of luck. Now we can collect more points – 100pc.”

Slot said: “Defeat hurts everyone. We wanted to be in this competition as long as possible but both teams hardly created chances and in a game like this it’s up to one moment and it was for them. Also they deserved it because they played a really good game.”

Liverpool will expect a different line-up and result in the Merseyside derby on Wednesday.

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