Liverpool 5 - 0 Palace

Wednesday January 24 2001 - League Cup

Liverpool ended Palace's Worthington Cup dreams tonight as The Eagles were sunk 5-0 (Agg 6-2) by The Reds.

Three goals in only five minutes brought an end to Palace's Worthington Cup final.

Goals by Smicer, Murphy and Biscan gave Liverpool a 3-0 lead after just 18 minutes to turn around the 2-1 defeat at Selhurst Park a fortnight ago.

Not long after the interval, Murphy scored his second and Liverpool's fourth by beating the offside trap and dispatching the ball into Kolinko's goal.

Palace's biggest chance of the game was for Clinton Morrison. The young striker, who was booed by the Liverpool fans throughout the game, completely missed a volley and in his second attempt, he found Liverpool goalie Westerveld in his way.

In the final minutes of the game, Kolinko was sent off after bringing down Liverpool's Fowler, who was clean through.

The Palace keeper was replaced by young Matt Gregg, who saved the resulting free kick by Murphy but he had no answer to Fowler's strike one minute from time to make it 5-0.

Post match comments

The Palace manager said he believed that Liverpool would have beaten anybody the way they played.

He said: "Liverpool played exceptionally well. Whoever they were playing, they would have won with that performance.

"I put out a young side and that is the way forward. My players have done fantastically well to get here."

About Clinton Morrison, who had a quiet game after his comments towards Liverpool striker Michael Owen after the 1st leg, Smith said: "Clinton is okay. He has more humility than sometimes comes across. He is an honest boy but he still has a lot to learn."

A delighted Gerrard Houllier commented: "I am very proud of all the players. The boys deserve a lot of credit because there was some pressure on us to win this game and in the end we did it well.

"We should have won at Selhurst Park in the first leg, but we had to accept that on the night, things didn't go our way. It is funny because we scored some great goals and arguably they were from harder chances than the ones we missed at their ground.

"Crystal Palace are a good attacking team but we got off to a good start and that helped us."

From The Terrace Photos

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