Aston Villa have confirmed that their FA Cup third round clash with Liverpool will go ahead as planned despite the absence of manager Dean Smith and his first team players. The former European champions revealed earlier on Friday that the FA Cup third round tie billed for Villa Park on Friday evening will hold as scheduled. The FA Cup tie was initially in danger of being postponed after an outbreak ofCovid-19 at Aston Villa. The club took to Twitter on Friday morning to announce that the Liverpool game will be played later in the evening.

Aston Villa will have to prosecute the FA Cup tie with the Reds with the club’s u-23 and academy players due to the Covid-19 outbreak mentioned earlier. Aston Villa have had to close their training ground at Body moor Heath as a result of the significant Covid-19 outbreak. Aston Villa have been forced to turn to the youth players for the Liverpool game in the third round of the FA Cup as there’s no space for the match to be rescheduled between now and the fourth round ties in two weeks’ time due to fixture congestion.

Villa will use the u23s and the academy players depending on how many test negative for Covid-19. In the absence of Aston Villa first manager Dean Smith, u-23 manager Mark Delaney would be on the sidelines for the FA Cup tie with the Reds. Mark Delaney will have his hands full against a stuttering Liverpool team with no wins in the last three games in the league.

Several Aston Villa players and staff received positive tests for Covid-19 on Monday and they had to immediately self-isolate as a result. Another round of testing led to more positive results amongst the Villa first team squad on Thursday and this led to the cancellation of their training session just before the match with Liverpool.