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Having lumbered up the field for a last-minute corner the City goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel

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Having lumbered up the field for a last-minute corner, the City goalkeeper, Peter Schmeichel, found himself horribly embarrassed by a Liverpool counter-attack. El Hadji Diouf merely had to take the ball around Shaun Wright-Phillips to be faced by an empty net, albeit 30 yards away. Instead, he allowed himself to be tackled.Moments later, Schmeichel raced out of his area to head a long punt upfield clear and sent the ball only as far as Diouf His shot, with the keeper hopelessly stranded, missed It was that sort of game. Liverpool, driven forward impeccably by Steven Gerrard, were a long way from being irresistible, but, against City in this listless mood, they needed only to be competent to progress into the fourth round.

"This must have been one of the poorest ties played here and we never got started," Keegan reflected. "In the last 15 minutes we got to perhaps a quarter of what I wanted. I did tell the foreign players what the FA Cup means in this country, but I might just as well have saved my breath. We have played at home for 93 minutes and their goalkeeper has had one save to make. Liverpool approached it the right way and we didn't."The frenzy of the final five minutes apart, Liverpool created only one clear chance from open play, a volley from Vladimir Smicer which bounced wickedly on the icy pitch and which Schmeichel did well to save. Although Neil Mellor, who had been released by Manchester City and whose father played for the club, struggled manfully, Liverpool missed Michael Owen, who in the heady days of September had demolished City with a hat-trick here.Even so their manager, G?rd Houllier, thought this a more solid overall performance, although City had been weakened by the absence of two of their first-choice centre-backs when Steve Howey and Richard Dunne had to withdraw with an ankle injury and a virus respectively.

Everything was settled by a penalty, awarded when a cross from Smicer struck Marc-Vivien Fo? hand just after the restart, and converted by Danny Murphy, which sparked a petulant outburst from Keegan against the referee. "I never talk about Uriah Rennie except to say I don't like him as a referee Never have, never will. Technically, it was probably a penalty, but it was a horrible way to settle a Cup tie."At the other end of the Mersey from Manchester, they will not care. With the title already virtually conceded, Liverpool's season hangs by three threads to the FA, Worthington and Uefa Cups, and, after their feeble surrender in the mud at Newcastle on New Year's Day, the pressure was intense.

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