Aston Villa kids to face daunting test as first team squad ruled out of Liverpool FA Cup tie

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp. Picture: by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images

Aston Villa will field a youth team in their FA Cup clash with Liverpool this evening after coronavirus swept through the senior squad.

No first-team players will take part in the third-round game at Villa Park and boss Dean Smith will not manage the side Friday evening.

Assistants John Terry, Craig Shakespeare and Richard O’Kelly will also not be at the match, with no individual in the senior bubble involved.

Under-23s coach Mark Delaney, who played for Villa between 1999 and 2007, will take the side which will be made up of Under-18 and Under-23 players.

The youth squads and staff have been tested but they will need to be negative when the results come back to feature.

The youngsters train in a different area to the first team at Bodymoor Heath so have not come into contact with them, but if there is a further raft of positive tests, the game will almost certainly be called off.

Villa were forced to shut the training ground yesterday after confirming a large number of players and staff had contracted Covid-19.

Defender Jake Walker has been recalled from his loan at Alvechurch, who play in the Southern League Premier Division Central, to underline the numbers and players Villa need.

The club, FA and Premier League held talks on Thursday and confirmed they were trying to get the game on.

The FA said in a statement on Twitter: “The @FA and @AVFCOfficial are working closely together to try to ensure that the club’s #EmiratesFACup third round tie with @LFC can go ahead as planned at Villa Park [Friday] evening.

“Final confirmation will be made [Friday] pending the results of additional Covid-19 testing.”

Derby have also made the decision to take their youth team to Chorley for their FA Cup tie on Saturday after significant cases within their first-team bubble, but Shrewsbury’s game at Southampton is off after an outbreak at the Sky Bet League One club.

Although in extremely different circumstances, the game has similarities to last season’s Carabao Cup quarter-final between the teams in December 2019. Liverpool put out a youth side after their senior squad travelled to Doha for the Club World Cup and Villa won 5-0.

Meanwhile Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp insists he and owners Fenway Sports Group are on the same page when it comes to transfer business in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The defending Premier League champions are unlikely to bring anyone in during the January window as the club, like many others, keep a tight rein on their finances after an unprecedented 10 months.

So any chance of bringing in a centre-back as cover for the three senior players he currently has injured is a non-starter.

But Klopp accepts that is the understandable and responsible course of action – he prefers to do his significant business in the summer anyway – and rejected suggestions John W Henry’s FSG did not understand his needs.

“In good times everyone thinks our owners are really generous – ‘My God, big signings, whatever’ – and in bad times everyone thinks they are really tight – maybe because they are from a different country – but they are not, they are absolutely concerned about the club and success of the club,” he said.

“And that is an understanding how we have it. They see exactly the same things I see about necessity of players and stuff – it’s not that I say ‘By the way a centre-half would be really nice’ and they say ‘Wow, a centre-half. Really? Why?’.

“It is all clear, all on the table, we work on that. It is the situation and on top of that we have January, not the easiest transfer window, having not the money exactly like we want.

“It is a window where other clubs say ‘No, we have enough (money) to survive’ so we don’t do anything on our targets.

“It is nothing to do with worrying (about whether it affects their chances of defending their title) or not. These are the facts.

“My job is to deal with the circumstances which I always do. If the world would be in a completely normal place, we would try everything to do the right stuff now but the world is not in a normal place so I don’t know why we constantly try to treat the football like it is independent of other issues around.” 

The news there will be no incomings this month will no doubt infuriate some sections of the fan base, who have seen a drop-off in performances recently with just two wins in six matches and none in their last three.

Klopp, however, brushed that aside.

“I am a football supporter but not employed here as a supporter, I am employed as a manager,” he added.

“As a supporter I see we need a centre-half and another club has a good one so bring him in. I understand that.

“My job is not that, my job is to make the players we have here as strong as possible to deal with it.

“Would one centre-half help and sort all our problems? For a game or two and then he could be injured as well.

“It is the trickiest situation you can imagine; you have three senior centre-halves and they are all injured. That doesn’t happen a lot but it happened.

“We have to deal with it and we cannot solve it on the transfer market.

“The club tries what they can but if they can’t then we have to do what we did so far: get stronger as a group, stick more together and fight against the world, fight against the circumstances, strike back with all we have and make the most special season ever of it.”