Liverpool booked a place in the FA Cup semi-finals on Wednesday evening, after Philippe Coutinhoa s second-half strike sealed a 1-0 win away to Blackburn Rovers.
Brendan Rodgers made three alterations to the Liverpool side that lost 4-1 to Arsenal on Saturday, as the Reds took to the pitch at Ewood Park against Blackburn.
Glen Johnson, Dejan Lovren and Daniel Sturridge came into the team in place of Emre Can, Kolo Toure and Lazar Markovic. Rodgers also changed the 3-4-3 formation in place of 4-3-3 in the absence of Emre Can and Martin Skrtel.
Liverpool came into this match having lost consecutive matches and the Reds have fallen behind fourth placed City by seven points in the league and a place in next season’s Champions League is now looking like a distant dream, however winning the FA Cup would provide some consolation for Brendan Rodgers’s men.
In a game of few chances, Jordan Rhodes came closest to open the scoring in the first half but he put his effort waywards.
Sakho left the pitch with a hamstring injury midway through the first-half, with Toure coming on in place of the Frenchman.
Philippe Coutinho also came close in the first half when he almost squeezed a shot past Simon Eastwood, but the Blackburn goalkeeper managed to tip the effort wide of the post.
Blackburn came out in the second half on top, breaching the Liverpool defence on a couple of occasions only to be denied by the outstanding Simon Mignolet.Tom Cairney had his fine shot saved by the Belgian and then made an even better save to deny Ben Marshall header from the resulting corner.
The game was finely poised with a quarter of the game remaining, however with twenty minutes remaining Coutinho linked up expertly with Henderson down the right, and the Brazilian produced a superb finish in off the post from a tight angle to put Liverpool into the lead.
Sturridge looked off form all evening and missed a glorious opportunity to double Liverpool’s lead with ten minutes remaining ,Rickie Lambert headed wide with his first touch after he came on in place of Sturridge.
Blackburn’s goalkeeper Eastwood almost equalised in the dying seconds,with a shot any striker would have been proud of, but the shot went straight at Mignolet.In the end Coutinhoa s strike was enough to see Liverpool seal a trip to Wembley in 11 days time where they face Tim Sherwooda s Aston Villa.
