County hopes are smashed

Liverpool made light of their mounting casualty list to stroll to victory against Notts County in an ideal warm up game for their FA Cup semi-final.

Tough-tackling County had no answer to the quality of Liverpool and the irrepressible Steve McManaman who should have scored at least a hat-trick as the woodwork frustrated him time and time again.

Liverpool went ahead after 13 minutes, Ian Rush slipping the ball in for Michael Thomas who coolly slotted home a low shot.

Eleven minutes from the break Rush chested down Ronnie Whelan's pass for McManaman to run in and beat keeper Steve Cherry with ease for Liverpool's second.

Jan Molby headed out a County free-kick after 58 minutes to send McManaman scampering the length of the pitch on the break. His shot beat Cherry, rebounded off the post but left Rush with the simplest of jobs to make it 3-0.

Full back Barry Venison made it 4-0 after 76 minutes, drilling into the corner of the net from 20 yards after more fine work from McManaman and a pass from Mike Marsh.

McManaman could have added his second goal just three minutes after scoring his first, beating Cherry with a delightful angled chip only to see the ball rebound off the inside of the far post. The 20-year-old winger saw another shot crash against the bar just after the break, and when Mark Walters' shot rebounded to him off the bar, McManaman's goal-bound header was cleared off the line by Craig Short.

It took County 71 minutes to test Liverpool's troubled goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar for the first time.

Australian international substitute Frank Farina, on loan from Italian club Bari until the end of the season, skipped past two Liverpool tackles to unleash a low drive that Grobbelaar gathered at the second attempt.

Souness said: "We got three points tonight and no injuries. We played some attractive football, but we didn't do anything daft at the back and we were more positive in front of goal. It's nice to have that game behind us going into the semi-final. I was pleased because we knocked the ball about well and did what we had to do."

McManaman said: "That's the way it goes. Hopefully another time they will all go in. At least the last one that hit the post set up Ian Rush to score. I think the whole team enjoyed it tonight. We came in at half-time very happy because we were knocking the ball around well. We knew we only had to play the same in the second half to get more goals and we did. County did what they could. They played man-to-man, and the fact we were moving about a lot got other men through."

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