Liverpool have joined Chelsea, Manchester City and Leeds United in an unwanted FA Cup club with their shock 1-0 loss to Plymouth Argyle in the fourth round.
The Reds travelled down to Home Park for Sunday's tie aiming to keep their hopes of an unprecedented quadruple alive while they also compete for Premier League, EFL Cup and Champions League glory.
A 4-0 EFL Cup semi-final second-leg win over Tottenham Hotspur in midweek seemingly set the Reds up well for the trip to Plymouth, who were seeking another shock scalp after eliminating Brentford from the third round.
Arne Slot inevitably made several changes for the clash with the Championship's basement boys, introducing the likes of Trey Nyoni, James McConnell and Harvey Elliott into the XI, albeit one that also included experience in the shape of Federico Chiesa, Diogo Jota and Luis Diaz.
However, Liverpool just could not penetrate a resolute Argyle defence and succumbed to a second-half Ryan Hardie penalty, as the Reds' hopes of taking home four trophies in Slot's debut season crashed and burned.
Liverpool join unwanted FA Cup club in Plymouth loss
© Imago
In doing so, Liverpool became just the fourth team starting the day at the top of the Premier League table to suffer an FA Cup defeat to a side outside of the top division.
Only Leeds United, Chelsea and Man City have also been condemned to that fate, with the Whites the first as they were slain by Cardiff City while top of the rankings in 2002.
A first-placed Chelsea side were then memorably the victims of a Bradford City giant killing in 2015, before Manchester City's memorable exit at the hands of Wigan Athletic in 2018.
However, Liverpool still have success to fight for on three fronts this season, and they have just two days to dissect Sunday's loss before Wednesday's rescheduled Premier League Merseyside derby with Everton at Goodison Park.
Liverpool's lack of threat laid bare as Slot suffers personal worst
© Imago
While Liverpool were missing the menacing Mohamed Salah and Cody Gakpo from the first XI - not to mention the unpredictable Darwin Nunez - their attacking trident still packed a punch at face value.
Jota had either scored or assisted in all of his previous FA Cup away games before Sunday, while Chiesa scored an exquisite goal in the Reds' 4-0 third-round win over Accrington Stanley.
However, the Premier League leaders only accumulated 0.44 Expected Goals (xG) from open play at Home Park, their lowest total of the Slot reign so far, while also managing just four efforts on target.
Liverpool have now been knocked out of the FA Cup in the fourth round for the third time in the last five seasons, also falling at that stage in the 2020-21 and 2022-23 editions either side of lifting the trophy in 2022.
Ben Knapton
