Liverpool vs Exeter match report: Sheyi Ojo strike displays Reds spirit as Grecians crumble

Liverpool 3 Exeter 0

Sheyi Ojo celebrates scoring his first Liverpool goal (Getty Images)

For Liverpool, there was the satisfaction of creating some FA Cup romance while squeezing the life out of the side who were supposed to have arrived to bring it.

Rare have been the nights when they could claim that, amid the travails of the difficult past few years. The group of players who provided football of verve and energy added their names to a long list of young individuals who have so graced this ground.

The decisive goal by the 18-year-old England youth international Sheyi Ojo will live in the memory for many a long day.

They played the Wurzels’ “I am a cider drinker” across the Anfield Tannoy before the game began and, if that really was intended to provide a little familiarity for Exeter, then it did not entirely work on a couple of scores.

The cider production is over the Devon county border in Somerset, from where the makers are actually moving a large chunk of it to Ireland.

No matter and no offence taken, because the FA Cup and its incredible journeys have been the salvation of this League Two side, and this one never felt any less special.

They don’t even have a serviceable Tannoy at their place and the makeshift dressing rooms, built in the same year Bob Paisley was first taking up the managerial seat in this city, will also be put right at last with the £500,000 bonanza that these two games against Liverpool have brought.

There is also the sense of self-respect that the 2-2 draw at St James’ Park has given Exeter. They have come a long way since those excruciating days of Uri Geller and Michael Jackson, not to mention John Russell and Mike Lewis, the pair who put the club £4.5m in debt, virtually bankrupt and in the Conference, all in the space of a year.

However, their good fortune to be here did not compensate for the gulf between the sides when the game began. Jürgen Klopp was taking far fewer liberties with this game than he did the first tie, when 13 of the 14 who played for the Liverpool manager were making their FA Cup debuts.

Simon Mignolet, Jordon Ibe and Joe Allen started, and the side in black were so pummelled by Liverpool’s intense pressing that they could not find their own measure or rhythm, or even start to string passes.

They were behind inside 10 minutes, to an exquisitely worked manoeuvre: a precise one-two with Christian Benteke at its axis, after Jose Enrique’s pinpoint raking pass to the left flank, which sent Brad Smith behind the defence to level a ball back for Joe Allen. The Welshman lay undetected and struck it home well, continuing to enjoy the renaissance which is proving such a good advertisement for sprouting a beard.

It took away all grounds for anxiety, though Liverpool’s young side really showed none, playing with a spirit of adventure which, set against some of the drudgery against such sides as Carlisle United and Middlesbrough in the dog days of the Brendan Rodgers era, suggested again that they are travelling forward under this management.

Smith’s presence of mind for the goal bore out an impressive first half, though Klopp offered him a piece of his mind when his defensive work failed him on one occasion. With the caveat that this really was no test, Joao Carlos Teixeira was more impressive still, with his imagination and clever close control, while Cameron Brannagan, who has been a source of interest across Europe for two years, created a constant threat.

The dramatic tension belonged to Benteke, in the way that it can for a player when the truth is out there about his manager’s doubts. There was no captaincy for him as there had been in Devon – Enrique took that instead – and though his involvement could not be doubted, his touch and finishing were not there.

After another of the striker’s clever return passes sent Klopp’s holding midfielder Kevin Stewart through on goal, Benteke spurned two excellent headed opportunities – one touched over, the other put wide. A scuffed shot and some lost control after a series of stepovers provoked ironic cheers.

It contributed to Liverpool’s struggle to find the second goal which might have finished things, though the shots that they rained in, frequently from the right foot of Ibe, who looked in easy street, suggested that there was more to follow. Ibe had gone close twice before a thunderous shot from just inside the area cracked the underside of the crossbar with a bounce that was millimetres away from doubling the lead.

Any hope of some League Two romance diminished with Clinton Morrison’s struggle to make an impression, though the snatched and wild cross from Alex Nicholls when Stewart was dispossessed told of a team rushing, panicking and being crushed into submission.

Paul Tisdale attempted some emergency half-time surgery, immediately introducing Will Hoskins for Danny Butterfield and Tom Nichols for Morrison after the break. There was greater impetus, a corner and an attempt on goal, but it was the arrival of Jon Flanagan, a full 629 days and two knee operations after he last featured in a Liverpool starting line-up, that provided the greater electricity.

Then, the singular moment of genius that finished things. Substitute Ojo had only 19 minutes of first-team football to his name but his curled, left-footed strike into the top left-hand corner of Bobby Olejnik’s net revealed why the club moved heaven and earth to bring him here as a 14-year-old from MK Dons.

Teixeira put his side out of sight with eight minutes left, sliding home right-footed after Benteke had bulldozed through midfield, looked up and picked him out unmarked. Benteke even had a chance for salvation as the night wore out, though after rounding the keeper on the counter-attack he ran the ball out of play.

It was inconsequential. Liverpool have progressed to either finals or semi-finals on each of the four occasions they have encountered Exeter in cup competitions. Grounds to feel history can repeat itself.