Ryan Lowe hoping for Liverpool draw as Plymouth claim FA Cup third-round spot

Posted Sunday, November 29, 2020 by PA

Plymouth boss Ryan Lowe is keeping his fingers crossed for an FA Cup showdown with Liverpool after Argyle booked their spot in the third round with victory over Lincoln at Home Park.

Goals in either half from Luke Jephcott and Ben Reeves secured a 2-0 win over their League One rivals and Liverpudlian Lowe is now hoping to pit his wits against Jurgen Klopp’s Premier League champions.

He said: “Liverpool would be nice, I’d love nothing better.

“We’d like a big draw, we’d like a big club and that’s not disrespecting anyone in our league or left in the competition.

“We are probably not going to progress further than the third or fourth round so a big club would be a good for our football club.”

Wales Under-21 striker Jephcott headed in Argyle’s sixth-minute opener to continue his impressive form which has brought him six goals in his last six games and eight overall this term.

Reeves then capped an outstanding performance with a thumping 55th-minute volley to make it 2-0, and goalkeeper Michael Cooper made a string of superb saves to ensure Michael Appleton’s Imps left empty-handed.

Lowe said: “It was a good team performance, although in the first half I thought we gave the ball away a bit too cheaply and got turned over and turned around a lot but second half we were a lot better.

“So we had to work our socks off in the first half and yeah we were winning 1-0 but I want to keep playing and getting on the ball and second half we did that better.

“It was a game of two halves as it has been all season but today we flipped it around. We weren’t too brilliant first half but second half we were a lot better.

“We had to show them massive respect because of the way they play so to beat a good team 2-0 is very pleasing.”

He added: “We been asking the team for more set-play goals. Luke Jephcott has got a good early goal with a good header from a cracking cross and the second goal was some volley off Ben Reeves wasn’t it?”

Lincoln boss Appleton was frustrated about the result but had few complaints about his side’s performance and felt there were plenty of positives they could take away from the match.

He said: “We have lost the game but it doesn’t feel like we have lost the game. I thought we were outstanding in the first half, performance levels were so good in that first 45 minutes.

“It is frustrating but the players can be pleased with the way they went about their business.

“I made quite a few changes and it didn’t really disrupt the way we played.

“The lads who have come in, you wouldn’t have thought they had not played for a while.

“If we can keep moving forward and maybe get the first goal on Tuesday night (against Wigan) and put in a similar type of performance we won’t be far away.

“We showed a lot of good habits, every time the ball went into the keeper, we were ready to pounce for the tap-in and it wasn’t quite there.

“We are out of the cup but we have a massive league game at home to Wigan to look forward to on Tuesday.

“If there were three points on the line today you would probably see a lot more frustration from me but you have to put into perspective the way the players performed. They played well.”