Liverpool’s manager Jurgen Klopp believes the experience of having youngster playing first team football will help his young players in the future.
The former Borussia Dortmund manager fielder Liverpool’s five youngsters in his his starting XI during his side’s 1-0 win over Plymouth Argyle in their third round FA Cup replay.
The likes of Joe Gomez, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Ovie Ejaria, Kevin Stewar, and Ben Woodburn all completed the full 90 minutes at Home Park, while likes of Harry Wilson and Sheyi Ojo came off the bench in the second half of the game.
And the German boss believes his academy players will benefit from taking part in a first team victory.
“For all of them, it’s really good and very important,” Klopp told talkSPORT.
“They have made a big step in the right direction and using this experience will help them.”
Liverpool progressed to the fourth round thanks to Lucas Leiva’s first goal for the club in seven years, but the victory was anything but comfortable for the Premier League side.
The seven-time FA Cup winners endured a testing second half and missed the opportunity to double their lead when Divock Origi saw his penalty saved by Luke McCormick.
Derek Adams’ League Two outfit provided plenty of fight at Home Park and beat their opponents in countless 50/50 challenges.
Losing tackles, Klopp revealed, was an embarrassing experience for his array of international stars and aspiring youngsters.
“We are not used to playing a fourth division team and losing challenges on live television. I could see how embarrassed they [Liverpool players] were.
“At half time, we could fix this a little bit – that’s normal in football – you lose challenges, they lost very few tackles.
“The second half was absolutely ok, we had the penalty, we could have scored other goals and had other chances. They [also] had one or two. Of course, I would have loved to have won [by a] clearer [score-line]. 1-0, no extra-time and no penalty shoot-out was good.”