Liverpool and the English Football League believe the impasse over the fixture congestion surrounding the club’s Carabao Cup quarter-final at Aston Villa can be resolved by moving the tie back to 8 January, though they acknowledge such a switch could have an impact on the FA Cup third round a few days earlier.
Jürgen Klopp is not thought to favour a suggestion that Liverpool could use two entirely separate teams playing on the same night if necessary to get the Villa game out of the way while the senior side are in Qatar for the Club World Cup. The Liverpool manager suggested after the dramatic win against Arsenal that his side might pull out of the Carabao Cup if a suitable date could not be arranged, because the original scheduling for the quarter-final clashed with commitments between 18-21 December.
Both sides accept the Villa game cannot be played on the original date but, with the midweek calendar full until the end of the year, the first viable opportunity is the January slot earmarked for the first leg of the Carabao Cup semi-finals.
There are two midweek dates set aside for Carabao Cup games in January, and with some reshuffling it ought to be possible to use those, with a date in February likely to be found for the second leg of the semi involving Villa or Liverpool. The EFL is understood to have been in discussions with Liverpool about the various possibilities before the game against Arsenal, and was a little surprised when Klopp made his off-the-cuff comments afterwards.
The fixture schedule is tighter this season for two reasons. One is the winter break or free weekend in February, the other is the recent Premier League decision to bring a round of midweek matches forward to leave more space for clubs with European commitments, which has had the effect of pushing the Carabao Cup quarter-finals further back in the calendar.
The Club World Cup is not the problem; Chelsea and Manchester United competed in the Fifa event in 2012 and 2008 respectively while still involved in the League Cup and Champions League without running into the sort of fixture pile-up Liverpool are encountering.
What is different this season is the Carabao Cup quarters are closer to Christmas, as they have been for several years, and a Premier League club are involved in the Club World Cup for the first time since 2012.
Liverpool and the EFL are confident the Carabao Cup final can go ahead on 1 March as originally planned, though a complex situation will become even more tangled should Liverpool or Villa end up with an FA Cup replay to fit in after the third-round games over the first weekend in January.
Although delaying the Villa tie until 8 January is Liverpool’s preferred option, they feel a quarter-final then may overshadow the FA Cup third-round match and influence team selection for the older competition, although that would have been the case anyway for the four teams through to the semi-finals under the original schedule.
