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What do Jurgen Klopp and the FA Cup have that raises criticism of the Liverpool manager?
They did it again after the Reds began their campaign with a comfortable third-round win at Villa Park on Friday.
The question? Klopp sent a team TOO strong against an Aston Villa team made up of Academy youth due to a major coronavirus outbreak between the first team team and the coaching staff.
“To be honest, I was a bit disappointed that Liverpool didn’t pick an under-23 team,” former Villa, Millwall and Chelsea striker Tony Cascarino told talkSPORT.
“I would have loved if Klopp would have said, ‘you know what, just because we are Liverpool and we respect what happened at Villa Park, we will also go with the Under-23s.
To be fair, Cascarino’s comments weren’t the sharpest, and he later accepted that he understood Klopp’s decision.
But it was symptomatic of the reaction to many FA Cup picks by the Liverpool manager.
Since arriving at Anfield more than five years ago, he has been regularly accused of disrespecting the competition, albeit for completely contrasting reasons.
Klopp was vilified after his first FA Cup experience in January 2016 when he fielded a scratch team that only had 34 appearances between them for the third-round tie at Exeter City.
A similar accusation was leveled at him 12 months later, when Liverpool’s youngest starting lineup faced Plymouth Argyle.
And more of the same happened last year when Klopp implored his veteran players and staff to use the mid-winter break introduced in the Premier League, leaving former U23 boss Neil Critchley in charge of a team. from the Academy in the fourth round of the replay with Shrewsbury Town. at Anfield.
But all of those games had the same thing in common: Liverpool eventually made progress.
In fact, the final elimination came as Klopp introduced many more veteran players to the team, most notably in 2018 when West Bromwich Albion eliminated the Reds at home.
Sure, Klopp has mixed and matched their rosters in the competition and given various fringe and young players a unique opportunity. But so do most of the Premier League clubs.
And Klopp is not the first Liverpool manager to be accused of downgrading the FA Cup.
Rafael Benítez faced the same criticism after a terrible loss to Burnley in 2005. As if to prove a point, the Spaniard led the Reds to their most recent FA Cup triumph the following season.
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But it has not gone unnoticed that Klopp remains the only Liverpool manager in the last 60 years to take over an FA Cup campaign and not at least reach a semi-final during his tenure.
Maybe it’s time for that to change, especially with the elimination of replays that eliminate another annoyance from the Reds boss.
Klopp’s team selection last Friday showed no disrespect. Instead, he suggested that Liverpool are poised for a serious FA Cup twist this year.
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