Liverpool head coach Arne Slot may have to contend with further fixture congestion as a clash with Aston Villa will be rescheduled if his team reaches the Carabao Cup final.

The Reds will need to overturn a one-goal deficit in the second leg of the semi-final against Tottenham Hotspur at Anfield if they are to advance to the showpiece at Wembley on March 16. The Merseysiders fell to a controversial 1-0 defeat in North London in the first leg of the tie to set up what promises to be an entertaining reverse fixture.

Currently an away trip to Villa Park is pencilled in for March 15, with that game set to be moved if Slot's men can complete a turnaround to defeat Spurs in the Carabao Cup last four. Now, it has been revealed that the clash against the Villains will instead take place on February 19 - if the Reds reach the cup final.

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The game against Villa would then come between a home game against Wolverhampton Wanderers on February 16 and an away trip to face Manchester City on February 23. As it stands, the Reds have a seven-day rest to look forward to between those two fixtures as the current congestion of games looks set to ease somewhat in that week.

However, reaching the Carabao Cup final would mean that the Merseysiders would instead play three games in the Premier League in the space of seven days. It should also be noted that the Reds will play the second leg of their last 16 tie in the Champions League on either March 11 or 12 - with this coming just days before the Carabao Cup final on March 16.

For now, it appears that Liverpool boss Slot remains focused on more pressing matters - starting with a trip to face high-flying Bournemouth this weekend. The Cherries have defied pre-season expectations to find themselves in seventh place in the league, with the South Coast outfit potentially chasing continental qualification this term.

In the lead up to this clash, Slot spoke about the need to rotate players following an away trip back to his homeland to face PSV Eindhoven in midweek.

After making nine changes in the Netherlands, the Dutchman said: "Yeah, you can say I rested a lot of players [in midweek], you can also say you played the ones who needed playing time. And I was really pleased how they performed at PSV Eindhoven, who, apart from three or four players that were not playing, had quite a strong team and we were more than competitive.

"Even in the second half when there were so many youngsters on the pitch. And the ones that stayed behind, they didn’t rest in the sense that they had three or four days off – they did train but they didn’t play a game."

He added: "I’ve said already, that doesn’t give us any guarantees for Saturday but it hopefully will help us during the upcoming three or four months because the Premier League and the Champions League is a long season for them, with 10 months in a row non-stop playing games without any weeks off in between. So, hopefully that will help them stay fresh for the upcoming months."