Aston Villa vs Liverpool WILL go ahead this evening despite COVID outbreak

Tonight's FA Cup tie between Aston Villa and Liverpool will go ahead after an announcement.

The third-round tie had been cast into doubt yesterday due to a covid outbreak at the Midlands club. The outbreak has seen the entire first-team squad along with staff forced to isolate.

That left Villa to conduct mass testing of their under-23 and 18 teams in a bid to field a team. The outcome of those tests has allowed the fixture to go ahead, however, their Premier League game against Spurs midweek is still in doubt.

Interestingly, the issue regarding a postponement of the tie is when would the game could eventually be played. As the next round of the competition is set to take place in two weeks, with league games in between.

Tonight's decision could have shown the hypocrisy within governing bodies.

If the game had been postponed, then there would have been a case for questioning governing body decisions. Especially as Liverpool had been in a similar situation in December 2019 - again against Aston Villa.

The club was set to travel to Qatar to take part in the Club World Cup. However, the Reds had also advanced to the next stage of the Carabao Cup after beating Arsenal on penalties.

The dates for both competitions had then been released with Liverpool set to play Villa on December 17th. However, their fixture against CF Monterrey was the very next day, giving no time for rest and travel.

The club had asked for the Carabao Cup fixture to be moved but they had been denied by the EFL. That forced the club to play two different squads, in two different countries in 24 hours.

The right decision has been made for the game to go ahead, but a different outcome could have brought the FA under scrutiny.