On a night when Liverpool’s next generation hoped to show their readiness for regular action at this level, Aston Villa’s 30-year-old striker Jonathan Kodjia seized his chance to make a similar claim by playing a major part in Conor Hourihane’s opening goal before scoring two himself. That haul, along with an own goal by Morgan Boyes, earned a place in the Carabao Cup semi-final for Villa and taught Liverpool’s youngsters a lesson about the merciless reality of senior football. Wesley rammed the point home by making it 5-0 in stoppage time.
The scoreline made this seem like a caning but Liverpool were not exactly outclassed so much as defused with mature efficiency and some rotten luck. There were moments, particularly when 16-year-old Harvey Elliott went dribbling, when it seemed like the upstart visitors might just cause a shock. Villa’s goalkeeper, Orjan Nyland, had to make some fine saves.
Ultimately, though, Villa made themselves comfortable long before full time and Dean Smith could take satisfaction in seeing Wesley score after being sprung from the bench. The striker’s first goal in 10 matches was the perfect response to the challenge laid down by Kodjia. Thus Villa’s strikers got a timely confidence boost in advance of three Premier League matches with relegation rivals over what promises to be a fraught festive period.
Most of Liverpool’s youngsters could take heart from their performances, too. Even the goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher impressed despite being beaten by two soft goals early on.
“I’m incredibly proud of the performance,” said Neil Critchley, the Liverpool Under-23 coach who acted as manager for the occasion. “For large parts of the game we were well in it. I don’t think we did too many things wrong.”
Jürgen Klopp, watching from Qatar, relayed a similar message, letting the youngsters know at the break they were on the right track despite trailing 4-0. “We had some information at half-time from the manager,” Critchley said. “He basically said to keep playing the way we were playing, keep being brave and to keep doing what we were doing.”
Some of the youngsters will fly out to Qatar on Wednesday morning to join the first team at the Club World Cup.
Rarely in Liverpool’s modern history could they be described as an unknown quantity but their lineup contained several players who might have been asked for ID at the entrance, not so much to check their ages as to establish who they were. Their ages, having said that, were also remarkable as this was the club’s youngest starting lineup, with a few of the players barely old enough to buy a scratch card let alone to compete as equals against Premier League opponents.
Villa made 10 alterations to the side who started Saturday’s defeat at Sheffield United but still fielded a side consisting mostly of senior internationals.
Smith joked he had to do “FBI detective work” before the game to get an idea of how Liverpool would play, yet for the first 10 minutes it looked like his team might get caught cold.
Nyland had to make two fine saves early on. First he turned away a shot by Elliott, then denied Herbie Kane from close range after a clever chipped pass by Isaac Christie-Davies.
But soon Liverpool’s novices were shown how unforgiving top-level football can be. First, Hourihane opened the scoring direct from a free-kick wide on the right. He curled the ball into the net with his left foot past his compatriot Kelleher, who seemed to be distracted by Kodjia’s attempt to get a touch on the ball as it approached. Kelleher’s luck worsened three minutes later, when a cross from the right by Ahmed Elmohamady took a huge deflection off Boyes and looped into the net.
Liverpool enjoyed no such fortune a few minutes later when Ki-Jana Hoever’s shot from the edge of the area took a nick off a defender and flew wide. By now Villa were engaged in wily game-management but their opponents occasionally rattled them. Elliot was a delightful pest with his wriggly dribbles and cute touches. In the 26th minute he scooted down the right before dinking a lovely pass between two defenders to Christie-Davies, who met it on the volley 10 yards out. Nyland batted away the shot.
Villa scored a third in the 37th minute when Jota pounced on a hefty touch by Sepp van den Berg and slipped a pass through to Kodjia, whose finish did no harm to his cause of trying to take the place of Wesley in Villa’s starting lineup. He gave that prospect an even bigger boost just before the break, when he flicked the ball into the net from six yards after neat work by Jota and Elmohamady.
Villa saw no need to overexert themselves in the second half but Liverpool’s players yearned for a goal to show for their effort. Kane almost got one in the 55th minute but Nyland denied him with a superb reflex save. Then Kelleher had some joy at the other end, tipping away a low shot by Kodjia. Kelleher later denied Mohamed Trezeguet and Henri Lansbury. B ut he could not stop Wesley from adding a late fifth.
Smith pointed out that Liverpool were not the only ones fielding young men trying to forge a career in difficult circumstances: “Wesley is a 23-year-old player in a foreign country in one of the toughest leagues in the world,” Smith said. “Some of the criticism can be too harsh at times.”
