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Liverpool‘s Premier League title defence may well have ended months ago – but they still have a chance to save their season.

Three days after a painful stoppage-time defeat by Wolves left them sixth in the table, Arne Slot’s side returned to Molineux with an FA Cup quarter-final spot on the line.

And goals from Andy Robertson, Mohamed Salah and Curtis Jones saw them progress thanks to a comfortable 3-1 victory.

With a Champions League last-16 tie against Galatasaray to come – starting with Tuesday’s first leg in Turkey – all is most certainly not lost.

“Slot’s still got a wonderful opportunity to do something special,” said ex-Liverpool midfielder Danny Murphy on BBC One. “I know it’s unlikely with the way they’re playing because they’re so inconsistent.

“He’s got to stay positive and try cutting out the noise. There’s a lot of questioning of him from fans and journalists – he’s got to keep calm.

“But after the next six to eight weeks we’ll know where we’re at with Liverpool.”

Noise is putting it mildly. Slot admitted last month it had been the toughest season of his career “by a mile”, with a £450m summer spending spree not equating to performances and results.

Speaking after Friday’s win at Wolves, captain Virgil van Dijk conceded the campaign had been “very difficult for a lot of reasons”.

He told TNT Sports: “The FA Cup is very important to us – like always, but especially this season. Hopefully we can keep going.

After winning the title in some style in his first season having replaced Jurgen Klopp, Slot has found life more demanding and brutal this term.

They trail leaders Arsenal by 19 points and are out of the top five on goal difference with nine games left.

Nine defeats in 12 matches between September and December wrecked the season, at least in the league and Carabao Cup, but Slot’s men have now lost just three of their 23 games since that run.

Yet former Liverpool midfielder Murphy, who made 249 appearances for the club, believes Slot needs to win the FA Cup or Champions League to keep his job.

“Two out of the five new signings have done well. Of the players who were there last season, only one or maybe two have played to the level. It’s just not enough,” he said.

“All these factors have transpired together for this fall away that nobody anticipated. All you can do is try to rebuild and fight back and have some success by winning one of the cups.

“The Champions League is going to be more difficult, this is a realistic competition for Liverpool to win.

“When you’re at the top, even if you have a bad season, for Liverpool you’re expected to win something.

Against Wolves, the old guard did the job for Slot with Salah, Robertson and Jones sending Liverpool to victory.

The criticism and spotlight on Salah this season only intensified when he accused the club of “throwing me under the bus” in an explosive interview in December.

He left soon after for the Africa Cup of Nations, Egypt losing to Senegal in the semi-final in January, and the forward now has four goals in 11 games since his return.

Yet the 33-year-old has been nowhere near the levels he set last season, when he scored 34 goals in all competitions as Liverpool won their second Premier League title.

It was a lacklustre first half at Molineux from the forward before he added Liverpool’s second – although such was the quality of Robertson’s cross he could not miss.

There does appear to have been a truce between Salah and the club, although every goal could be his last for them after a decorated Anfield career.

It was also a rare Robertson strike, in a rare start this season, with the 31-year-old close to leaving for Tottenham in January.

But the Scotland international showed his reliability – along with Jones, who continues to do the same.

Both the midfielder’s goals this season have come in the last two rounds of the FA Cup, having scored in the fourth-round win over Brighton as well.

At 25 Jones is far from old, but he has 215 appearances for Liverpool and the academy graduate has been dependable and valuable for both Klopp and Slot amid big money buys.

It means youngster Rio Ngumoha has the perfect place and perfect players to learn from after the 17-year-old made the fourth start of his young career.

“It’s special when you are 17 years old if you are able to impact it with some very good one-v-one situations,” said Slot. “That also makes him special, there are not many players in the modern game who do that.

“He also did better than three days ago because he kept the ball more. Three days ago he also had impact and today he was even better.

Arnold Palmer Invitational – second-round leaderboard

-13 D Berger (US); -8 A Bhatia (US); -7 S Theegala (US), L Aberg (Swe), C Morikawa (US); -6 R Fowler (US); -5 X Schauffele (US), R Henley (US)

Selected others: -4 R McIlroy (NI); -3 S Scheffler (US); -2 H Hall (Eng) -1 J Spieth (US); E R MacIntyre (Sco), M Fitzpatrick (Eng); +1 T Fleetwood

Daniel Berger extended his lead to five shots at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, as Rory McIlroy rallied in the second round.

Berger, 32, followed up his superb opening 63 – just one short of the Bay Hill course record – by shooting a four-under-par 68 on Friday.

It is five years since the American recorded the most recent of his four PGA Tour wins at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February 2021.

Berger’s closest challenger at the halfway stage was fellow American Akshay Bhatia, who moved to eight under following a best-of-the-day score of 66.

Following a level-par opening round, Northern Irishman McIlroy will begin the third round tied ninth after he improved to four under.

McIlroy remained even as he reached the back nine but birdied four of the next seven holes to post 68 and climb up the leaderboard.

World number one Scottie Scheffler appeared set to match his opening round 70 but the American slipped to three under after bogeying the 18th.

Tommy Fleetwood rallied with three birdies on the back nine to get back to one over par and inside the weekend cut-off.

Berger has suffered a run of injuries, including a back issue which sidelined him for 18 months and fractured a finger at the BMW Championship in August last year.

He put himself on course for a long-awaited victory – and the £3m top prize – after a clean run on the back nine included three birdies to strengthen his position.

“I actually feel like I played better [today], the course was a little tougher,” Berger said.

World number one Luke Littler got his UK Open defence off to a winning start, overcoming Damon Heta 10-3 with another ‘Big Fish’ checkout along the way.

The tournament at Minehead, Somerset, sees more than 100 PDC Tour card holders take on 16 amateur qualifiers and a further 16 players from the Winmau Challenge and Development tours.

As the world’s top 32 entered the fray in round four, Littler took out 170 to move 7-2 ahead – a day after having notched two in his first Premier League win of the year.

He signed off in style shortly afterwards with a 120 finish comprising treble 20, double 20 and double 10.

Other action saw Michael van Gerwen edge past Nathan Aspinall 10-8 after coming from 4-2 down.

Describing Aspinall as “a fighter”, Van Gerwen told ITV he had kept “cool, especially at the end of the game” but admitted he had given “The Asp” too many chances.

Beau Greaves, who last month became the first woman to achieve that feat on the PDC ProTour, exited in round two, losing 6-4 to Darryl Pilgrim.