By: Shane Brennan.
Liverpool travelled to Nottingham on Sunday afternoon to face Nottingham Forest in The FA Cup quarter final, The Reds knew that victory would give them the chance to take on title rivals Manchester City at Wembley in the semi-final next month.
Liverpool started on the front foot, and they needed to as Nottingham Forest were not giving the star studded Premier League side time to breathe on the ball, Roberto Firmino found Kostas Tsimikas with a lovely flick of his heel, and the Greek international let fly with an excellent dipping shot, that had Ethan Horvath scrambling, but unfortunately the shot was always rising.
Then it was Forest’s turn to get going, as Philip Zinckernagel picked out Joe Lolley, who had a good attempt at goal, but it was always a shot that lacked direction, as a buoyant home crowd were on their feet.
Then Forest got caught in possession, and this presented Roberto Firmino with a golden opportunity to give The Reds the advantage, but Ethan Horvath was in the way to deny the Brazilian, then Firmino had a follow up header, that lacked the power and the desired direction, and Joe Worrall just lashed the ball out of harm’s way for Forest.
The second half was a real hard fought affair with not too many chances up for grabs, as both sides gave as good as they got in an engrossing cup tie, but it has to be said that Forest missed a glorious chance to have one foot in the last four, when they hit Liverpool on the counter attack, Ryan Yates found Brennan Johnson with plenty of room to run into on Liverpool’s right side, he picked out Forests main danger man on the day Zinckernagel, who had the time to get a decent shot away, but ever so fortunately from a Liverpool point of view, his shot went wide of Alisson Becker’s right hand post, to let the Premier League side off the hook, and leave former Liverpool Academy boss Steve Cooper with his head in his hands.
Just over a minute later, Liverpool were to take full advantage of their huge slice of good fortune, when Jordan Henderson won the ball back off Djed Spence, the skipper found Tsimikas, who picked out a super ball into the Nottingham Forest area, to find Diogo Jota in just enough room to squeeze the ball home past a helpless Ethan Horvath, to leave The Reds just over ten minutes away from a trip to Anfield South once again!
But the goal did not dampen Forests spirits whatsoever, because when James Garner, found Ryan Yates, The City ground got to its feet in expectation once again, Yates tried to take the ball around Alisson, the Brazilian looked to have originally taken down the Forest man, but replays showed that he had stumbled over Alissons arm, when the ball had gone without the Liverpool goalkeeper making any real contact with the on rushing attacker, as Liverpool survived a massive scare.
Forest were to have one more big opportunity, when Brennan Johnson managed to get his cross into the box, it found Yates, who could only direct his header straight at Alisson.
Then it was time for everybody associated with Liverpool FC to rejoice once again as Wembley awaits The Mighty Reds, as their push for the quadruple intensifies.
