Holders Liverpool were undone by two defensive blunders that allowed Wolves to claim a 2-2 draw and a replay of their third FA Cup tie at Anfield on Saturday.
A disjointed Liverpool looked to have recovered from Alisson’s early gift to Goncalo Guedes to give Wolves the lead when Darwin Nunez and Mohamed Salah scored at either end.
But poor defending by Jurgen Klopp allowed substitute Hwang Hee-Chan to hand the team 19th in the Premier League a deserved replay at Molineux later this month.
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“It was a good start, a dominant start,” Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp told ITV. “We played some really good football and then we conceded. It shouldn’t have been a goal, but we all know how many times Ali [Alisson] saves our back.
“Before then they had counter attacks, when it is always dangerous [Adama] Traore takes the ball. We could see that. We came back with a fantastic equaliser, at half time everything was clear what we wanted to improve and change to cause them more problems.
“Then it was a dominant performance before they got their foot in the game and we didn’t win enough from there. They caused us big problems. We left problems in the game. The draw was unlucky, but it shouldn’t have been.” can work in our box.”
Liverpool, featuring a debut for new Dutch forward Cody Gakpo, had made a small breakthrough before falling behind on 26 minutes.
In a catalog of mistakes, Thiago first lost the ball to Alisson’s throw and when the ball then came back to the Liverpool keeper, he passed it straight to Guedes who graciously accepted a simple finish.
The hosts, who seemed a bit shocked by the concession, did little to suggest an equalizer was in store. But a moment of light saw them go into half-time on level terms.
After a clearance in midfield, Trent Alexander-Arnold picked up the ball on the halfway line and delivered a brilliant diagonal pass to the foot of Nunez who expertly headed home a first-time volley.
Liverpool came out strongly after half-time, quickly finding themselves in front.
There was an element of luck as Salah was clearly in an offside position from a pass over the Wolves defence. But Toti’s clearance effort landed at the feet of Salah and was deemed by a VAR review to have the Egyptian on his shoulder before it turned and ended up in the corner of the net.
– VAR Review: Why Wolves’ ‘winner’ was disallowed for offside
It looked as though it would be a Wolves challenge, but more hapless Liverpool defending allowed them to level the game at 2-2 once again.
Hwang was allowed to race into the Liverpool box before laying the ball off to fellow substitute Matheus Cunha and stepping in to head his effort past Ibrahima Konate before slotting through Alisson’s legs. to crash.
More drama ensued when Wolves thought they had a late winner through Toti only to be denied by the raising of the offside flag. A lengthy VAR review ensued but, to the fury of Wolves boss Julen Lopetegui on the sidelines, offside was ruled.
While Wolves felt they could have had more, they will have another chance to beat last season’s FA Cup winners in a home game in 10 days’ time.
Information from Reuters contributed to this report.
