Aston Villa vs Liverpool

Villa Park

KO: 7.45pm

BT Sport 1

8th of January 2020

Tonight is a chance for Liverpool to put a number of things right, when they meet Aston Villa in the hope of progressing to the fourth round of the FA cup.

Five seasons under Klopp have seen Liverpool play poorly in the FA Cup, having gone out of this stage of the competition once and three times in the fourth round. Last season, the Reds reached the fifth road, where they were beaten by eventual finalists Frank Lampard’s Chelsea.

The Reds will hope to return to winning ways tonight, against hosts Villa, whose coronavirus outbreak at their training ground, has failed to see the game called off.

Liverpool will hoping to seek revenge on Dean Smith’s side, who put seven past them back in October, and Klopp will likely put out a strong side to avoid another embarrassment.

Although, they are set to face a young and inexperienced Villa, with the club set to field a team mainly compromising of players from their Under 23’s side, with manager Dean Smith not in attendance.

Villa has confirmed 14 positive COVID tests in their first team bubble, 10 of those are players.

It would act as a reversal of the last time the two met in the cup, with a Reds outfit with the average age of 19.5 sent out back in December 2019 while the first team was in Qatar.

Jurgen Klopp’s men aren’t in tip-top form after a series of disappointing results in the Premier League, but another tonight presents another chance to to strike back and this one is no different.

While a rotated side is expected, starting the wheel of momentum and building confidence, once more is the utmost priority, and while it would add more games to the schedule this season, a win here would exactly, be what the doctor ordered.

Time to returns to winning ways, Liverpool

Team News

In a rare occurrence this season, it could be a case of an unforced rotation for Klopp with the injury situation somewhat easing.

The Reds will of course be without Virgil Van Dijk, Joe Gomez, Diogo Jota, and Kostas Tsimikas, while the game against Villa might too soon for midfielder Naby Kieta and centre-back Joel Matip- who are making the right steps back to full-fitness.

There is hope the latter will be back in contention for the visit to Manchester United on January 17th, but for now Liverpool need to focus with players available to them currently.

A new back five could see Caoimhin Kelleher, Rhys Williams, Nat Phillips, Neco Williams and James Milner all start, while Thiago could get another run out this evening alongside Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Takumi Minamino and Xherdan Shaqiri.

We will have to wait and see!

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