Liverpool 1-1 Carlisle (3-2 on pens): Adam Bogdan spares hosts' blushes

It doesn't get any easier and it isn't getting any better. Brendan Rodgers had reason to cheer an unlikely hero last night but not much else.

 

Liverpool achieved their ultimate objective of securing a place in the fourth round of the Capital One Cup but that bare fact hides a multitude of sins, as they needed three saves from second choice goalkeeper Adam Bogdan in a penalty shootout to see off Carlisle United.

 

This was another performance to leave Rodgers, whose position looks increasingly uncertain with a furrowed brow; Gary McAllister, Liverpool's first team coach, said the manager was 'delighted like the rest of us' but it is hard to see how he can be happy with the way things are.

 

Though his side had 46 shots at goal during 120 minutes of action, they rarely looked 65 places better than Carlisle and even in the shootout they lacked conviction, with Philippe Coutinho and Adam Lallana missing from 12 yards.

 

Fortunately for Rodgers, James Milner, Emre Can and Danny Ings – by far Liverpool's best performer – kept their nerve and then Bogdan stood firm, repelling Danny Grainger and Luke Joyce's efforts before plunging to his left to thwart Bastian Frey.

 

Had Liverpool fluffed their lines, Rodgers would have been confronting the kind of storm today that raged on Roy Hodgson in September 2010, when his Liverpool side lost on penalties to League Two Northampton Town at the same stage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

culled from daily mail