Plymouth pulled off a famous FA Cup victory by defeating Premier League leaders Liverpool in the fourth round.

Plymouth Argyle boss Miron Muslic admitted he was expecting to be put under siege by Liverpool as his side pulled off an FA Cup giant-killing.

The Pilgrims, who are bottom of the Championship, produced a major upset by defeating the Reds 1-0 in the fourth-round tie at Home Park. Liverpool, who top the Premier League by six points, made wholesale changes to their starting line-up but it still included Luis Diaz, Diogo Jota, Federico Chiesa, Wataru Endo, Harvey Elliott and Kostas Tsimikas.

Yet Arne Slot’s side were lacklustre throughout. They were deservedly beaten, with Ryan Hardie’s 53rd-minute penalty etching Plymouth into FA Cup history.

‘Enjoy defending’

Muslic has only been in the Pilgrims driving seat for a month after replacing Wayne Rooney. They have picked up in their bid to avoid Championship relegation because of their defensive improvements - and admitted he told his Plymouth troops they have to ‘enjoy defending’ which they did against Liverpool.

He said: "We played Liverpool so it was just omnipresent and very, very big in the city, in the club, in our locker room, and we just wanted to represent Argyle in the best possible way.

"That was the game plan, to be structured, to be organised, to be brave, to fill it with intensity and then just to show ourselves, to use this huge stage, it's an opportunity for the players to shine and I think the lads did it outstanding.

"Part of the plan was to keep a very good defensive structure. We knew it's Liverpool and we will have a lot of moments when we have to defend, where we will have our block a little bit deeper, and we have to enjoy defending, and I think we just did it.

"I recall one shot outside of the box of Liverpool that was the most dangerous action. To keep them out, to keep them away from the goal, it's a huge task.

"We just had a very strong defensive structure, also later on in the game when Liverpool pushed for the last 10-12 minutes with a lot of crosses, a lot of long balls, almost every clearance was for us - (Nikola) Katic, Maksym (Talovierov) - and nice saves also on Conor (Hazard). In the end you need a little bit of luck but I think we deserved to win this game."

Elliott’s verdict

Liverpool attacking midfielder Elliott, who gave away the penalty for handball, admitted that Plymouth were full value for their triumph. The Reds lost for just the fourth time in all competitions this season but any aspirations of achieving a quadruple are over.

Elliott told the club’s website: “In these games – and any game really, especially when you’re a goal down away from home – you tend to rush things a little bit. Things come in a rush and I think we just lacked that composure at the end. But at the same time their ’keeper made some unbelievable saves, one from [Diogo] Jota in particular, and credit where credit is due.

“They were great today and made it really, really hard for us and we couldn’t cope with that. But as I said, it’s a learning curve. It’s a different game for us because we’re not used to playing these kind of games and there are things we can learn and for myself and the younger lads, we can keep taking it in our career.”