Liverpool will make special arrangements to fly a number of young players involved in their upcoming Carabao Cup quarter-final at Aston Villa out to Qatar in time for the climax of the Fifa Club World Cup.
The Reds confirmed a 23-man squad for the latter tournament on their official website on Thursday, with the inclusion of Harvey Elliott, Rhian Brewster, Curtis Jones and Neco Williams coming as something of a surprise.
The academy quartet were expected to miss out on the trip to the Middle East as a result of Liverpool agreeing to play twice in less than 24 hours later this month in order to help ease their fixture congestion.
However, Standard Sport understands that all four players are likely to feature when U23s boss Neil Critchley takes charge of a youthful side at Villa Park, with provisions being made to then take them to Qatar.
In Pictures | Liverpool vs Everton | 04/12/2019
Klopp is believed to be keen to involve the youngsters who have been a regular feature at Melwood this season in what would be a significant success for the club.
They could, of course, make history in Birmingham prior to that should they be named in the youngest starting XI in Liverpool’s history.
The previous record was set by Klopp when he named a team with an average age of 21 years and 296 days against Plymouth Argyle in the FA Cup in 2017.
But with no senior stars set to be involved at Villa, that benchmark could be smashed.
Liverpool squad: Alisson, Van Dijk, Wijnaldum, Lovren, Milner, Keita, Firmino, Mane, Salah, Gomez, Adrian, Henderson, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Lallana, Lonergan, Shaqiri, Brewster, Robertson, Origi, Jones, Alexander-Arnold, Elliott, Williams.
