Brighton 1 Liverpool 2:LIVERPOOL SURVIVED a stylish second-half fightback by Brighton to progress to the fourth round of the League Cup thanks to goals from Craig Bellamy and Dirk Kuyt, before a late penalty from Ashley Barnes gave the Championship club some reward for their efforts.
Liverpool took control of the match from the beginning and opened the scoring in the seventh minute. After neat interplay on the left, Luis Suarez spotted a clever Bellamy run and rewarded it with a deft pass, leaving the Welshman to slot the ball past the goalkeeper, Casper Ankergren, from six yards.
The mobility of Liverpool’s two strikers, as well as Kuyt and Maxi Rodriguez on the wings, bewitched Brighton. In the 20th minute an intervention by Gordon Greer at the back post deprived Kuyt of the chance to head a Rodriguez cross in. Moments later Kuyt did meet a cross, but the ball was hacked off the line by the home side’s centre-forward Craig Mackail-Smith.
The first significant incursion into Liverpool’s area came in the 22nd minute, but Will Buckley failed to get across to two awaiting team-mates in the six-yard box.
Dalglish will have been encouraged by the promise shown by the Bellamy-Suarez double-act. The pair combined to good effect again on the half-hour mark, although the Uruguayan shot wide from 16 yards after being put clean through.
Bellamy was proving ubiquitous. He assumed free-kick duty in the 34th minute and swung in a fine ball from the right, again towards Suarez. The Uruguayan flicked a header against the post and wide. Brighton had another close escape just before the break when Bellamy went straight for goal from a 35-yard free-kick and his ferocious effort cannoned back off the crossbar.
There was still time for Liverpool to hit the frame of the goal for a third time before the interval, Spearing shaving the post with a low drive from 20 yards. It seemed barely credible that Brighton would make it to the break with just a one-goal deficit, yet they almost levelled at the end of the first half. Following their best move of the game, Craig Noone forced an awkward save from Pepe Reina. Martin Kelly scrambled the ball away as Matt Sparrow closed on the rebound.
Brighton carried their positive end to the first period into the second and almost immediately equalised. The sloppiness of Sebastian Coates helped. The centre-back played a lazy ball across his own area straight to Noone, who unleashed a Bellamy-esque shot from 25 yards. It, too, crashed out off the bar.
Steven Gerrard made his long-awaited comeback in the 74th minute as a replacement for Suarez but the Championship side continued to look the more likely to score. Nine minutes from time, however, Liverpool struck through a counterattack launched by the impressive Bellamy. Rodriguez and Kuyt found themselves up against only one defender and the goalkeeper, and the Dutchman steered a low shot into the corner of the net from 15 yards. Still Liverpool could not relax as Ashley Barnes converted a penalty for the home side in the 90th minute after Jamie Carragher tripped Vicente.
BRIGHTON: Ankergren, Greer, Calderon, Vincelot, Cook, Navarro (Barnes 78), Sparrow (LuaLua 78), Noone, Bridcutt, Buckley (Vicente 60), Mackail-Smith.
LIVERPOOL: Reina, Kelly (Flanagan 86), Coates, Carragher, Robinson, Maxi, Spearing, Lucas, Suarez (Gerrard 75), Kuyt, Bellamy.
Referee: Michael Oliver.
