With Villa manager Dean Smith and his entire first-team squad kept away from the tie due to a coronavirus outbreak at the club, a young Villa side took on Liverpool at Villa Park.
The Premier League champions struck three times in five minutes in the second half to eventually run out as 4-1 winners, with first-team stars Gini Wijnaldum and Mo Salah joining Sadio Mane on the scoresheet as the Senegalese bagged a brace.
With Liverpool’s first-team and youth squads operating in different covid ‘bubbles’ it would have been impossible for Klopp to field a mix and match side featuring squad players and young talents.
But speaking on talkSPORT, former Villa forward Tony Cascarino says the Liverpool boss should have reduced the age of his team in order for them to be at the same level.
“To be honest, I was a bit disappointed Liverpool didnt go with an Under-23s team,” said Cascarino.
“I didn’t want Liverpool to have Champions League-winning players to go against a Villa team that was more like Under-18s, actually, than Under-23s.
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“I would have loved if Jurgen Klopp had gone, ‘you know what, just because we’re Liverpool and we respect what’s happened at Villa Park, we’ll go with Under-23s too’.
