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Liverpool top Wolves in replay to stay alive in FA Cup

Sports Desk, Jan 17 (EFE).- FA Cup holders Liverpool beat Wolverhampton 1-0 Tuesday to reach the fourth round of the 2022-2023 edition of the world’s oldest national football competition.

Ten days after battling to a 2-2 draw at Anfield, the teams met again at Wolverhampton’s Molineux Stadium.

Wolves came into the contest off a lost to Nottingham Forest in the Carabao Cup quarterfinal followed by a 1-0 victory over West Ham United in the Premier League to climb out of the drop zone.

Liverpool, meanwhile, hoped to bounce back from what coach Jurgen Klopp described as their worst performance of the season, a 3-0 defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion that pushed the Reds down to ninth in the Premier League table.

The hosts, vastly improved since Julen Lopetegui took charge as coach, started ambitiously and created several occasions before Cody Gakpo fired straight at Wolves keeper Jose Sa on the Reds’ first chance in the 10th minute.

But seconds after the Liverpool defense defused a threat from Rayan Ait-Nouri, Harvey Elliott put the visitors up 1-0 in the 13th minute with a tremendous strike from 25 yards after an impressive run from his own end of the field.

Kostas Tsimikas fired over the cross-bar when he was poised to extend the lead for Liverpool in the 16th minute and Gakpo went on to squander a pair of chances leading up to Fabio Carvalho’s apparent goal for the Reds in the 35th minute, which was disallowed for offside.

The closest Wolves came to equalizing was an Adama Traore effort that ended up in the side-netting with five minutes left in the first half.

Klopp pulled Gakpo – still waiting for his first Liverpool goal in favor of Mohamed Salah in the 65th minute, but the Egyptian striker made little impact.

For Wolverhampton, Raul Jimenez failed to get enough power on a header in the 79th and Matheus Cunha was denied by keeper Caiomhin Kelleher in stoppage time. EFE id/dr

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