Villa teach Liverpool’s kids a lesson

Liverpool’s youngest ever team suffered a harsh lesson on Tuesday as Aston Villa ran out 5-0 winners to reach the League Cup semifinals, with Jonathan Kodjia scoring twice.

The Liverpool line-up contained five debutants and an average age of 19 years, six months and three days with the European champions’ first team and coaching staff, including manager Jurgen Klopp, in Qatar for their Club World Cup semifinal against Monterrey on Wednesday.

That inexperience showed defensively despite a much better performance from the visitors than the scoreline suggests.

“I thought we were magnificent,” said Liverpool’s stand-in manager Neil Critchley.

“We were really unfortunate to concede from a free-kick and a cruel deflection and find ourselves 2-0 down. It was an incredible night and no-one wanted it to end.”

Villa made 10 changes themselves with Premier League survival a priority.

“It was a bit of a weird game, probably the weirdest one I’ve been involved in for a quarterfinal of a major competition,” said Villa boss Dean Smith.

“I came through coaching those sorts of age groups. It was great to see them on that stage, so we had to be very professional.”

“It was a lose-lose for us,” Villa midfielder Conor Hourihane said. “Everyone expected us to win and we just had to do our jobs.”