Plymouth Argyle 1-0 Liverpool: Ryan Hardie penalty seals shock FA Cup upset for Championship side against Premier League leaders

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From its place on the hill above the city, Home Park looks out over Plymouth Hoe, the patch of land where Sir Francis Drake finished his game of bowls when he was told of the approach of the Spanish Armada. Giant-killings are part of the landscape down here in the West Country.

From the top of the beautiful Mayflower Grandstand the delirious fans of Plymouth Argyle, a team nicknamed the Pilgrims with fans who go by the name of the Green Army, witnessed football’s stirring retelling of the vanquishing of a great power that most had begun to think was invincible.

This is a club steeped in fierce local pride, a club that is one of the great outposts of the English game, a club whose grandstand references setting sail for new worlds, a club whose fans greet opposing teams with rousing renditions of a song that celebrates being Janners, the name for natives of this part of Devon.

It is a club that revels in its own identity. Its fans wear green scarves, its players wear green shirts, its stands are painted green. When Neil Warnock was the manager here, he harnessed the power of being outsiders and Miron Muslic, the coach who replaced Wayne Rooney here and fled from Bosnia to Innsbruck as a refugee, is harnessing it again.

If anyone could have predicted where Liverpool’s pursuit of the Quadruple might end this season, many might have bet on the Bernabeu, the Nou Camp, Munich’s Allianz Arena or perhaps Wembley Stadium. Instead, it ended here, at Home Park, in front of the Green Army.

It ended against an Argyle side that has only won once in the last three months and sits rock bottom of the Championship. It ended against a team that seemed to lurch from one misfortune to another when Rooney was in charge here.

Liverpool’s challenge for those four trophies foundered on the rocks that were the heroic Argyle central defenders Maksym Talovierov, from Ukraine, and Nikola Katic, from Bosnia, who were so obdurate and determined they could have repelled that armada all by themselves.

Ryan Hardie (centre) scored the only goal of the game as Plymouth Argyle beat Liverpool

Hardie netted from the spot in the second half to seal a historic FA victory for his side

Hardie sent Liverpool keeper Caoimhin Kelleher the wrong way to break the deadlock

They were Plymouth’s men of war. And they were ably abetted by home goalkeeper Conor Hazard, who pulled off astonishing saves from Diogo Jota and Darwin Nunez in the dying minutes of this tumultuous, breathtaking FA Cup fourth round tie.

They deserved this win, too. They were the better team against a toothless curiously listless Liverpool side made up of second stringers and the talent of the future. Their winner was a second half penalty from Ryan Hardie, whose son was a mascot and had predicted a 10-0 Plymouth win before the game.

Hardie junior may have been a little over-optimistic with the scoreline but he was not wrong about Argyle’s spirit. They did the FA Cup and the English game in general proud with the way they stared down the best team in world football so far this season.

Liverpool’s manager Arne Slot has made a flawless start to his time as a manager in English football since he succeeded Jurgen Klopp as Liverpool boss and this was the first time that English football bit him and bit him hard.

His team selection was his first mistake since he arrived from Holland. It is easy to sympathise with that selection because his side are chasing honours on so many fronts. Something has to give. He has to rest players some time. But the scale of his changes left him and his team badly exposed.

Slot made 10 changes to the side that breezed past Spurs in the Carabao Cup semi-final last week and did not even include Ryan Gravenberch, Alexis Mac Allister, Andy Robertson, Mo Salah, Virgil van Dijk, Alisson, Ibrahima Konate, Conor Bradley, Dominik Szoboszlai or Cody Gakpo in his squad.

That left his bench dangerously threadbare and when a team made up of fringe players and promising kids from the academy struggled to cope with Plymouth’s physicality and skill or threaten their defence in any way, he did not have the reinforcements to make changes that mattered.

The goal proved to be the winner with the Championship club pulling off a huge upset

Arne Slot's hopes of winning a quadruple came to an end as he played a weakened XI

When the final whistle blew after nine minutes of added time, it signalled the shock of the round and what will almost certainly be the shock of the season. The bottom of the Championship beating the top of the Premier League isn’t supposed to happen in modern football.

Men like Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish, who speaks scornfully of the ‘corner shops’ of our game must have been horrified at the fate that befell the supermarket. For the rest of us, Argyle’s 1-0 win was a sign that the FA Cup is the competition that refuses to die, another wonderful reminder of the beauty that this competition can conjure.

Slot paid lip service to the magic of the Cup before the match but it is a long time since the top clubs picked their strongest XI for matches like this and Slot is no different. If he were going to sacrifice one competition of the four Liverpool were chasing, it would probably have been this one.

It was always clear that Slot’s team selection was going to be a gamble, particularly given the attitude of Plymouth head coach Muslic, who clearly sensed possibility. 'We are an underdog,’ Muslic said, ‘but we want to be a brave underdog.’

Roared on by the Green Army, Plymouth started strongly. Pumping the ball long to Mustapha Bundu and using pace down the flanks, they launched two swift counter-attacks that stretched Liverpool and needed last-ditch clearances.

Liverpool suffered a blow less than ten minutes into the game when their captain, Joe Gomez, who is only just back from a long injury lay-off, hurt himself as he made a clearance. Gomez knew immediately that something was wrong. He looked devastated as he walked to the touchline to be substituted.

Liverpool, not surprisingly, lacked their usual assurance and even though the Premier League leaders were dominating possession, Plymouth began to put them under some pressure late in the half.

The Reds had plenty of chances to score but couldn't make them count on the day 

Ten minutes before the interval, Bundu, who was winning a lot of aerial challenges, fell in a heap with Kostas Tsimikas in the box but referee Sam Barrott waved away appeals for a penalty.

A few minutes later, Liverpool failed to clear a long throw and it bounced off a defender’s knee into the path of Darko Gyabi, who was 14 yards out. Gyabi blasted it back towards goal but it flew high over the crossbar.

Plymouth threatened again straight after half-time. Callum Wright escaped down the left and turned inside Isaac Mabaya on to his right foot. His fierce drive was on target until it was deflected by the head of Wataru Endo. It could have gone anywhere but it flew over the bar.

It felt as if a goal was coming. Seven minutes after the break, Gyabi attempted an overhead kick in the Liverpool area and it hit the outstretched arm of Harvey Elliott. It was a clear penalty and Hardie dispatched it emphatically past Caoimhin Kelleher, who dived the wrong way.

The goal forced Slot into action. He brought off Mabaya, who had been an early substitute for Gomez, and threw Darwin Nunez, who had been warming up meaningfully at half-time, into the fray. It felt like it might be his type of game.

No sooner had he come on, though, than Plymouth nearly doubled their lead. Nikola Katic, who had lost a tooth in the line of duty in the first half, rose superbly to head a free kick across goal. Hardie controlled it, spun and shot. Kelleher got a faint touch on it that turned it on to the post.

Liverpool pressed for an equaliser but Plymouth did not suffer their first real scare until two minutes from the end of normal time. 

Katic and Plymouth goalkeeper Conor Hazard both went for the same Liverpool long ball and when Katic headed it into the path of James McConnell, Hazard was stranded.  McConnell took the ball down but smashed his shot just wide.

There were gasps of dismay when the fourth official’s board showed there would be nine minutes of added time and only a couple had elapsed when Hazard made a brilliant flying save from a snap shot by Diogo Jota.

In the dying seconds, Hazard made another fantastic save, tipping over a point-blank header from Nunez. 

It was a day to remember for the home fans as they beat one of the best teams in the world 

Kelleher stayed up for the resulting corner but when the ball came to him, he could only nod it tamely into the hands of the Plymouth keeper. 

Kelleher has grown used to being a cup hero in the past. This time, it was someone else’s turn.

After the game, Muslic said it had been the best day of his life. Hardie came in to the press room, clutching a handful of programmes and team sheets and Nunez’s shirt.

He said he had been so overcome with emotion when he heard his son being interviewed before the game that he had wept. It is, I suppose, what they call the magic of the Cup.