Liverpool pulled off the revenge mission over Wolves to progress with a 3-1 win in the FA Cup, as Rio Ngumoha stole the show but the warning signs still linger.
Wolves 1-3 Liverpool
FA Cup Fifth Round | Molineux
March 6, 2026
Goals: Hwang 90+1′; Robertson 51′, Salah 53′, Jones 73′
Rio Ngumoha proved everyone right
Rio Ngumoha FA Cup Wolves. March 6, 2026. PA
Started at last and picked up Man of the Match. A composed, mature, electric performance. Every box ticked, good in and out of possession and didn’t once look like a teenager playing against men.
Arne Slot will now have a sizeable headache when it comes to reconsidering how much to increase the game time of the 17-year-old.
The expectation is huge yet this schoolboy keeps delivering again and again.
Liverpool’s possession-obsession is still too slow
WOLVERHAMPTON, ENGLAND - Friday, March 6, 2026: Liverpool's head coach Arne Slot shouts instructions during the FA Cup 5th Round match between Liverpool FC and Wolverhampton Wanderers FC at Molineux. (Photo by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)
The Reds leave Wolverhampton with a healthy scoreline, but before the hosts keeled over we did see a pretty familiar pattern unfold.
The first half panned out in much the usual manner: Liverpool banking endless amounts of possession and doing next to nothing with it.
Slot has always championed possession and control, he has the accolades and silverware to back it up. Yet Liverpool are hardly mirroring the Man City of old, who could kill a team by a thousand cuts.
The slow burn of possession, when done correctly, builds like a tidal wave and crashes down upon an opponent once they’ve ran out of legs.
Liverpool are still at risk of oversanitising their possession and coming away with little, despite getting the job done here. The greatly improved second-half performance needs to be the blueprint going forward.
Ngumoha success sums up Liverpool’s unpredictability issue
WOLVERHAMPTON, ENGLAND - Friday, March 6, 2026: Liverpool's Rio Ngumoha (L) is challenged by Wolverhampton Wanderers' Jackson Tchatchoua during the FA Cup 5th Round match between Liverpool FC and Wolverhampton Wanderers FC at Molineux. (Photo by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)
Unpredictability is what Liverpool really do not have anymore.
Granted, with the likes of record signing duo Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak out of the team there is some explanation for this.
In an ideal world Liverpool would be now reaping the benefit of months of football in the legs of both players, but the injury gods have had other plans.
And so Liverpool have been left as a rather one-dimensional, predictable outfit. Ability-wise they’re better than almost everyone but that counts for little when lesser opposition know exactly what you’re going to do.
It comes as no surprise then to see Ngumoha shining so brightly. The wonderkid fizzes with flair and his markers have no clue what he’s going to do.
Like Liverpool last season, who had an unknown style set down by a new manager, Ngumoha can use the element of surprise very much to his benefit.
Switching things up is delayed by Arne Slot
WOLVERHAMPTON, ENGLAND - Friday, March 6, 2026: Liverpool's Kieron Morrison receives final instructions from head coach Arne Slot (R) during the FA Cup 5th Round match between Liverpool FC and Wolverhampton Wanderers FC at Molineux. (Photo by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)
This is rather ironic, given large portions of the season so far have seen the theme of shotgun substitutions all coming on together in the latter stages.
Liverpool and Slot aren’t exactly following that mantra anymore, but things are being left rather late before the game plan is tweaked.
Far too often now have we seen a very weak and lacklustre first-half showing being followed by exactly the same XI, set up in exactly the same way, for the second period.
Keeping things consistent is obviously important, but it’s not important at all if your Plan A doesn’t appear to be working.
Slot comes away from this fixture vindicated given Liverpool found a purple patch just before the hour mark and put the game to bed, but against more superior opponents it’s easy to envisage that such an upturn would’ve been much more difficult.
The Szoboszlai full-back project continues to confuse
LONDON, ENGLAND - Sunday, January 4, 2026: Liverpool's Dominik Szoboszlai during the FA Premier League match between Fulham FC and Liverpool FC at Craven Cottage. (Photo by David Rawcliffe/Propaganda)
Liverpool’s nailed-on candidate for Player of the Season so far has done an admirable job of filling in across the back line, but Szoboszlai remaining at right-back despite the introduction of Jeremie Frimpong was a peculiar one.
There is an obvious case to be made for the raw pace of the Dutchman making sense to terrorise the wing in the latter stages, but Szoboszlai remained pinned to the wider areas as a result.
The first half saw the Hungarian limited, as Liverpool repeatedly recycled the ball out wide in hope of feeding the wingers in behind. The final balls came to nothing and the process was copy-and-pasted again and again until the half-time whistle sounded.
It feels like a sticking point which needs to be addressed going forward – impeding the momentum of your most in-form player is never ideal.