LIVERPOOL’S youngest ever team suffered a harsh lesson Tuesday as Aston Villa ran out a 5-0 winner to reach the League Cup semifinals, with Jonathan Kodjia scoring twice.

An unrecognizable Liverpool lineup had five debutants and an average age of 19 years, six months and three days with the European champions’ first team and coaching staff, including manager Jurgen Klopp, in Qatar for their Club World Cup semifinal against Monterrey.

That inexperience showed defensively despite a much better performance from the visitors than the scoreline suggests.

“I thought we were magnificent,” said Liverpool’s stand-in manager Neil Critchley.

“We were really unfortunate to concede from a free-kick and a cruel deflection and find ourselves 2-0 down.

“It was an incredible night and no one wanted it to end.”

Villa made 10 changes themselves with Premier League survival their priority and could have had a much tougher night had Liverpool taken advantage of a bright start.

“It was a bit of a weird game, probably the weirdest one I’ve been involved in for a quarter-final of a major competition,” said Villa boss Dean Smith.

Harvey Elliot became the youngest player to ever play in the Premier League just a month after his 16th birthday last season when at Fulham before a summer move to Anfield.

And he was the standout performer of Liverpool’s young crop as his driven effort produced a good early save from Orjan Nyland.

However, the floodgates opened 14 minutes in when Conor Hourihane’s free kick evaded everyone and flew under Caoimhin Kelleher’s grasp.

“It was a lose-lose for us,” Hourihane told Sky Sports. “Everyone expected us to win and we just had to do our jobs.”

(SD-Agencies)