With the Aston Villa squad decimated by the virus, they were forced to field a mixture of Under-18 and Under-23 players against Liverpool in the third round of the FA Cup.
The young Villa side competed well against a strong Liverpool team and it needed three goals in the second half for Klopp’s side to win the game and progress in the competition.
Cascarino believes that the game did not happen on a level playing field as Liverpool played with Champions League winners in their team against an academy side from Aston Villa.
He feels in the spirit of fairness the Liverpool manager should have played an Under-23 side to make it a more competitive game against the Villans.
Cascarino said on talkSPORT: “To be honest, I was a bit disappointed that Liverpool didn’t go with the Under-23 team.
“And there would be many supporters around the country who would disagree with me on this, but I wanted it to be on a level playing field.
“I didn’t want Liverpool to have Champions League winners going against Under-18s if you like, more than Under-23s.
“I just felt that I would have loved to see Jurgen Klopp go, ‘you know what just because we are Liverpool and we respect what happened at Villa Park, we will go with the Under-23s’.”
Liverpool played an Under-23 side against Aston Villa last season in the EFL Cup when their first team were away playing in the Club World Cup.
