Plymouth Argyle hand Liverpool exactly what they wanted

In the pick of this weekend’s FA Cup fourth round ties, Arne Slot’s high-flying Liverpool made the near-three hundred mile trip south to Home Park to face Championship strugglers Plymouth Argyle.

Liverpool deserved their premature cup exit just as much as Plymouth did their victory

In what will go down as one of the all-time great cup shocks, it was Argyle that defied the odds to advance to Monday night’s fifth round draw. Yet, as I shall elaborate, Liverpool deserved their premature cup exit just as much as Plymouth did their victory.

It was Liverpool’s now departed former coach Jürgen Klopp, for all his managerial merits, who was instrumental in the Football Association’s decision this season to scrap replays in every round of the competition, even in the first and second rounds in which Premier League sides do not participate.

Klopp and his billion pound squad were for years in an almost constant state of grumbling over a congested match schedule, apparently neglecting that clubs in the Championship and Leagues One and Two (and that’s not to mention non-league), to whom well-earned cup replays away at capacious Premier League stadia mean so much financially, play at the minimum eight league games more than his side a term.

I can understand that these clubs do not have to juggle domestic football with European competition as Klopp did, but to me European football should be deemed a privilege. As a Norwich fan, I would do anything to see my team play just once in my lifetime in rural Kazakhstan, let alone compete in Europe almost every season without fail.

Argyle dug in and grafted and ensured that one goal would be enough to see them through

In this year’s edition of the oldest club knockout tournament in the world we have already seen such non-league outfits as Weston-Super-Mare, Maidenhead United, Boreham Wood, and Tamworth all denied replays against loftier opposition. In the case of Tamworth, who took Ange Postecoglou’s Spurs to extra time, they were denied guaranteed financial certainty for the foreseeable. And this is all because Klopp et al elected that these ties need be decided on the day to ease fixture congestion that had absolutely zero impact on his team.

Plymouth Argyle’s performance on Sunday absolutely warranted them not falling victim to this same thievery.

In what has been on the whole a joyless campaign thus far, Argyle dug in and grafted and ensured that one goal would be enough to see them through. And when their chance eventually came, forward Ryan Hardie kept his cool from the penalty spot to send the home faithful into bedlam.

Plymouth’s new-look backline, three of whom having been recruited in January under new head coach Miron Muslić, threw their bodies in the way of every cross and every shot to ensure their fairytale progression into the fifth round, Matthew Sorinola and Nikola Katić in particular standing out for their performance and, in the case of Katić, his post-match interview ‘enthusiasm’.

Such a rebuttal of one of the world’s most potent attacks, even in the absence of Mohamed Salah, was unimaginable even a matter of weeks ago for Argyle. Particularly on their travels their defence has leaked goals like few Championship outfits before them, no less than on five occasions this season conceded four or more away from Home Park.

Football is more than the winning

As amusing as it was sitting only two seats and a handful of stewards away from the travelling Argyle faithful on a damp Tuesday night in November as my Norwich side hit them for six, deep down I really was gutted for the seven hundred of them that had embarked on the voyage to Norfolk and were likely to be up all night on their way home.

For those that made the November midweek trip to Norfolk and continue to do so week in, week out in spite of the circumstances entirely deserve this weekend’s result.

I’ve seen a lot of comments recently, most attributed to fans of the ‘Big Six’, that this term’s doing away of replays actually favours the underdog, which I find baffling. Such comments tend to suggest that the Tamworths and the Plymouths stand a far greater chance of progression in the event of a tie in extra time than they do in a replay, which may be true. But this lacks a great deal of understanding of what football is.

It’s a shame that Klopp’s time at Liverpool ran out before he could witness his meticulously crafted destruction of the most historic sports competition in the world pan out

Football is more than the winning. For fans of Tamworth and the like, a fourth round trip to the state-of-the-art Tottenham Hotspur Stadium would be a once in a lifetime pilgrimage, and this is not to mention the financial prize for their club that was robbed of them given the capacity of Spurs ground (in which Tamworth would have enjoyed fifty percent of the ticket revenue).

Yet many ‘Big Six’ fans will fail to comprehend this because, for them, football is nothing more than a fashion accessory or something to brag about on social media.

It’s a shame that Klopp’s time at Liverpool ran out before he could witness his meticulously crafted destruction of the most historic sports competition in the world pan out, but I’m sure Liverpool fans are glad that they needn’t worry about yet another FA Cup tie this season.