Brighton and Hove Albion 2 Liverpool 3
Albion are out of the League Cup again and now haven’t progressed beyond the fourth round for 46 years.
The first half was fairly uneventful aside from Tariq Lamptey’s one-on-one miss with Liverpool goalkeeper Vitezslav Jaros.
The visitors enjoyed most of the possession before the break but this was merely a warm up and was upstaged by a frantic second half.
Cody Gakpo scored after less than a minute, the first of two goals from the 6ft 4in Netherlands international.
He went on a run, leaving the Brighton defence looking flat-footed by contrast, before firing a shot from the edge of the box.
Jason Steele dived but was unable to reach the ball as went in just inside the right-hand post.
Albion responded by taking the game to Liverpool and did their best to get back into it.
Simon Adingra had a super chance to put the Seagulls level but his header was spectacularly saved by Jaros.
Albion went further behind just after the hour after Tariq Lamptey lost possession and Gakpo netted, again the result of an impressive individual effort.
The Seagulls pulled it back to 2-1 on 81 minutes when Adingra latched on to a rebound.
Soon after, though, Luis Diaz made it 3-1 to the visitors, taking advantage of a loose ball in the box.
With the game moving towards added time, Lamptey made amends with a deflected effort and pulled the score back to 3-2.
But the Seagulls were unable to find the chance to pull themselves level and set up the first-ever penalty shoot-out at the Amex.
The two sides are due to meet again at the weekend, with Albion scheduled to play Liverpool at Anfield in the Premier League on Saturday (2 November).
