By Alan Duffy
After a difficult couple of weeks, Liverpool gave their fans something to shout about on Wednesday night, with the Reds booking their place at Wembley after a hard-fought win away at Blackburn.
Without the suspended Steven Gerrard, Martin Skrtel and Emre Can, the Reds found it difficult to get their passing game going on a poor pitch, while Blackburn, with in-form targetman Rudy Gestade only on the bench, struggled to muster any sort of attacking threat.
To make matters worse for the visitors, they saw centre-half Mamadou Sakho have to go off just before the half-hour mark with a hamstring injury, to be replace by Kolo Touré.
After the break, Blackburn enjoyed their best spell of the game, with Simon Mignolet forced into a couple of fine saves.
However, on 70 minutes the breakthrough finally came for Brendan Rodgers’ men, with Philippe Coutinho playing a deft one-two with Jordan Henderson before rifling the ball into the back of Simon Eastwood’s goal.
Late on, none other than Eastwood himself had a chance to level the scores after coming up for a corner. However, the ‘keeper fired his effort straight at Mignolet and the Premier League side held on for the precious victory.
Liverpool can now look forward to an FA Cup semi-final against Aston Villa, with the ‘Get Gerrard to Wembley’ bandwagon getting their wish!
Here is dem highlights…
Photos: Getty Images
Highlights: Footytube
Vine: Red Crusade