By: Shane Brennan.
Liverpool travelled to Wembley to face Manchester City on Saturday afternoon, Victory for The Reds would see them progress to The FA Cup final for the first time in ten years.
Liverpool were very fast out of the blocks and were richly rewarded when Andy Robertson whipped in a corner kick, which saw Ibrahima Konate rise highest to head Liverpool in front and give the traveling Kopites the dream start.
Then it was to get even better for The Reds, as Zach Steffen failed to deal with a back pass from John Stones, as the American dilly dallied, Sadio Mane charged in and won the ball whilst sliding it into the back of the net to double the lead in London.
It was a first half that Liverpool totally dominated, and they took full advantage of a lacklustre City performance, when just before the break Trent Alexander-Arnold combined with Thiago Alcantara to set up Mane who took his shot early, and it caught out Steffen once again, as the ball went into the bottom right hand corner of the net, as Liverpool looked to be out of sight as Michael Oliver blew his whistle for the interval.
The second half proved to be a little bit trickier than Liverpool would have envisaged, as the champions of England showed their true colours, as right at the start of the half Fernandinho and Gabriel Jesus linked up to find Jack Grealish in space, as he smashed the ball past Alisson Becker to reignite hope for the blue side of Manchester.
Liverpool were beginning to feel the nerves of the big occasion, as Grealish threaded a ball through The Reds defence like a knife through butter, to pick out Jesus who was clean through on goal, every person associated with Liverpool Football Club held their breath, but the coolest man in the building Alisson bailed Liverpool out with a quite stunning save, to keep the two goal lead intact.
Then The Reds very nearly wrapped up the tie, as Luis Diaz caused too much hassle for Oleksandr Zinchenko, which resulted in him being only able to find Mohamed Salah, but sadly he could only find the side netting, as the ball fell to him on his weaker foot.
As the game was about to enter into added time, at the end of another pulsating encounter between two of the most extraordinary teams English football has ever seen, City had a route back into the game, thanks to a lovely run from Riyad Mahrez, who got his shot away, and on this occasion, Alisson could only shove the ball out to Bernardo Silva, who knocked the ball into the net, as Manchester City reduced the deficit back to a single goal with a few minutes remaining.
City were to have one last lash at an unbelievable salvage operation, as the ball fell for Fernandinho, the Liverpool defence rushed out to hurl themselves in the way of a thunderous shot, that ended up deflecting over the top of Alisson’s crossbar, as Liverpool held on to make it a joyous day in the Wembley sunshine.
Liverpool advance to face Chelsea in the final on May the 14th.
