Aston Villa’s Younger Players Were 'Dropped Off By Their Parents' For FA Cup Clash With Liverpool

Aston Villa CEO Christian Purslow hilariously admitted that several of his side's players would have to be 'dropped off by their parents' for their FA Cup clash with Liverpool on Friday.

The Premier League side have been hit with a significant outbreak of COVID-19, which has affected nine players and five staff at the club.

And the impact of coronavirus at Villa has left manager Dean Smith to field an inexperienced starting XI at Villa Park against Liverpool in the third round of the FA Cup.

Purslow suggested that the younger players who would feature for Villa would arrive at the stadium with the assistance of their parents.

"Our experience of this situation in the past two days has been a frightening scenario because we went from 100 per cent negative on 1st January to 14 cases," he told BT Sport.

"We had a tricky day yesterday to try to find enough players who'd be able to represent the club tonight. The players were tested and the results came back this morning.

"These players have had no contact with any of the players in the first team. Many of them are so young their mums and dads will be dropping them off at Villa Park tonight."

Fans took to Twitter to share their feelings on the youthful Villa side, which has an average age of 18 years and 294 days.

Speaking ahead of the match, Villa academy boss Mark Delaney said that his boys were "excited" for the opportunity and were "looking forward" to the clash.

The 44-year-old Welshman told BT Sport: "It's been a manic couple of days. The manager rang up on Thursday and said, 'It looks like you might have to take the game.'

"There are excited boys in there. They're looking forward to it. This is the biggest opportunity you can have.

"At the start of every season, we say you have to be ready for these opportunities. Today, it's as a group which doesn't happen often.

"We're missing some of the under-23 players who were training with the first team. We can match them with attitude, desire and work rate and that's all I ask.

"We've just done the meeting with the gaffer. He's spoken to the players in the dressing room [on a call]."

Topics: Villa Park, Liverpool, Football News, Aston Villa, Football, FA Cup, Villa Park, Liverpool, Football News, Aston Villa, Football, FA Cup

Adnan Riaz

Adnan Riaz is a journalist for SPORTbible. He studied for a B.A. in History at the University of York and followed it up with an M.A. in Multimedia Journalism at MMU. Before he started writing about sports, he spent over four years in the gaming press. He has worked for several publications, including Hardcore Gamer, LADbible and the Manchester Evening News. Follow him on Twitter to find out what he is working on next. Got a story tip for Adnan? Email him: [email protected]

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