Aston villa vs Liverpool
Youngest ever Liverpool team taken to school in League Cup
Aston Villa made short work of an overmatched Liverpool side with a 5-0 win in their Carabao Cup quarterfinal encounter on Tuesday night.
pic credit: liverpoolfc.com
HIGHLIGHTS
- Liverpool was beaten 5-0 by Aston Villa to reach semi-finals
- Liverpool was forced to field its youngsters - with an average age of 19 years, 182 days
- Villa reached the last four of competition it has won five times
- With the senior team on Club World Cup duty in Qatar, Under-23 coach Neil Critchley took charge of the side with Liverpool fielding their youngest team ever with an average age of just under 19-and-a-half.
- The young Reds looked dangerous in the opening 10 minutes, but it was the hosts that struck first when Conor Hourihane's free kick from the right edge of the penalty area beat Liverpool keeper Caoimhin Kelleher.
- And Villa would double the lead against their inexperienced opponents soon after as Ahmed Elmohamady's shot took a wicked deflection off Morgan Boyes and floated over Kelleher's head into the Liverpool goal.
- Jonathan Kodjia scored two more before the break off the back of Liverpool defensive miscues, beating Kelleher with a clever little flick before redirecting an El Mohamady cross into goal to make it 4-0 at the half.
- The young visitors dug in for the second half and managed a few chances, while only conceding late in the second half to Villa, who are now through to the semifinals.
- The visitors held their own in the second half until substitute Wesley added a fifth goal in injury time of a match that, for many critics, calls into question the integrity of the competition.
- It was probably a lose-lose (situation), Hourihane said. Everybody expected us to win so we had to be professional and do our job.
- Critchley described it as an enjoyably tough occasion for his young team, and said Villa manager Dean Smith and assistant coach John Terry - the former England captain - came into the locker room after the game to congratulate Liverpool's players.
- They said how difficult we made it for them, that we have some really good players, to keep going and wished us all the best for the future, Critchley said. That will be a moment that I remember and the players remember for the rest of our lives.
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