Even before Wolves fashioned a 94th‑minute winner, this had been everything but the stress‑free visit Arne Slot would have gladly welcomed. Just as it seemed Mohamed Salah had rescued Liverpool a point at bottom club Wolves, André’s deflected shot beat Alisson to secure for the hosts their second Premier League win in five days, having waited six months for their first, in January. Slot hunched over, winded by defeat, alarmingly a fifth in stoppage time this season. Wolves, meanwhile, are suddenly having something of a ball.
For Rob Edwards, the Wolves head coach, it was that time again. “It’s not great for my heart, but I could get used to it,” he said. Last Friday, he streamed down the touchline and pulled his calf, he said, celebrating Wolves’ second goal to secure victory against their rivals Aston Villa.
This time he cut loose again after André’s strike, which pinballed off Joe Gomez, floored Liverpool. Edwards, eyes wide with delight and disbelief, booted a ball off a pitch‑side cone and hurtled off to savour another special moment in a gruelling season. Gomez, a second-half substitute, dragged his red Liverpool shirt over his face. Slot was punch-drunk. Liverpool were beaten by the league’s last-placed side.
The winner stemmed from Alisson’s half-baked clearance, which Jackson Tchatchoua headed back where it came from. André seized the ball about 35 yards from goal and then took aim from outside the box. Virgil van Dijk, who was at fault for Wolves’ opener courtesy of Rodrigo Gomes, turned his back and Gomez’s attempt at a block proved insufficient. Fittingly, André and João Gomes were last to emerge from the rubble of the pile-on that had formed in front of the South Bank. By the end Edwards was doing fist pumps, a trademark of Slot’s predecessor, in front of the Wolves supporters.
Wolves stunned the visitors by taking the lead with 12 minutes of regular time to play, Rodrigo Gomes’s clinical finish capping a well-worked attack that will haunt Van Dijk. Liverpool were toiling but then, after another anonymous display, Salah sprang into life. The reality is Salah should have put the ball on a plate for an unmarked and advancing Dominik Szoboszlai before Wolves’ winner, but the Egyptian could not locate his teammate in red as Liverpool flew forward in numbers. Then Van Dijk planted a header at José Sá from a dainty cross by the 17‑year‑old Rio Ngumoha, who again lifted Liverpool as a substitute.
Liverpool have been unconvincing of late, the 5-2 scoreline flattering them last time out against West Ham and before that they smuggled a late win at Nottingham Forest. The 47 first-half minutes at Molineux offered little encouragement. There were more signs that Salah’s powers are on the wane and Liverpool generally laboured throughout. The visitors mustered two shots on goal in the first period, Cody Gakpo firing straight at Sá and Szoboszlai taking aim with a speculative effort.
Something had to change and Slot tweaked personnel at half-time, introducing Curtis Jones in place of Ryan Gravenberch. Jones was immediately in the thick of things and surely would have helped the ball in at a 50th-minute corner had Gakpo not intervened. It was a strange episode, one symptomatic of Liverpool’s struggles. Hugo Ekitiké flicked the ball on at the front post and at the back post Jones was lurking, at which point Gakpo stuck out his right boot and inadvertently hooked the ball against Jones’s chest. Sá was behind his own goalline as the ball looped up against the underside of the crossbar. Milos Kerkez waited for the leftovers but the ball dropped beyond him.
Wolves exhibited the composure of champions to seize the lead on 78 minutes. Tolu Arokodare, on as a substitute, did superbly, nestling between Van Dijk and Ibrahima Konaté before expertly laying the ball off for an advancing Rodrigo Gomes, who surged into space vacated by Konaté. The Liverpool defender tried to make amends but Rodrigo Gomes toe-poked the ball with his right boot, enough to lift a deft shot over a stunned Alisson.
Ngumoha was the catalyst for Liverpool’s win at Forest and struck a post here a couple of minutes after Liverpool absorbed the Wolves substitute’s strike. Then it seemed Liverpool’s old entertainer Salah would rescue his side, beating Sá with an inventive shot with the outside of his left boot.
Wolves had other ideas and the bad news for Slot is Liverpool are back here in the FA Cup fifth round on Friday. Edwards accepts he and his players may have poked the bear. “We’ve probably made them quite angry now, so we’ll see,” he said.
