A much-changed Liverpool side edged League One outfit MK Dons in front of a packed Stadium: MK on Wednesday night, with just under 29,000 watching on.

Backed by a vocal away support, Jurgen Klopp’s side featured 11 changes from the weekend win over Chelsea, with a youthful front-line backed up by experience further down the pitch.

MK Dons, meanwhile, named a strong side as Paul Tisdale eyed another shot at knocking his opponents out of a cup – as he came close to doing with Exeter in the FA Cup three years ago.

For much of the first half, too, things were fairly even.

Whilst Liverpool enjoyed plenty of possession, they did little with it and the home side had the first big chance of the game.

Dejan Lovren, back in the side after a long-time away, conspired to slip to let the hosts in, but Conor McGrandles could only find the fans behind the goal donned in red, rather than the white of the net.

A wake-up call for Liverpool, then, and they quickly responded, minutes later Harvey Elliot managed to hit the cross-bar from six yards, again with the goal gaping.

From there, MK Dons looked largely comfortable with letting Liverpool have the ball.

Paul Tisdale had set his side up well, they looked a threat on the break and the Reds were not going to have a breakthrough handed to them – or so it seemed.

Indeed, just under five minutes from half-time, James Milner struck a powerful, but straight, shot at Stuart Moore from outside the box – it had largely been what the Reds had been limited to – but it slipped out of the goalkeeper’s hands and into the net.

Into the second half we went, then, with MK Dons not needing to panic about their performance so far.

Indeed, they looked more threatening in this half, Dejan Lovren did well to get back and stop Sam Nombe from scoring early in the half, whilst Jordan Bowery – looking increasingly lively as the game went on – hit the post.

The goal, though, would not come for the hosts, and eventually the Reds hit a second – Ki-Jana Hoever crashing home a header.

A goal that, perhaps normally, would crush spirits of a lower league side in such a tie; the second goal seemed to let MK Dons off of the leash – they suddenly had to go for it, and that they did.

Late chances came and went, Lovren cleared off of the line from George Williams whilst Bowery was thwarted time and again – it made you wonder whether things might have been slightly different had the hosts been more gung-ho in the first half.

As it was, though, they’d perhaps left it a little too late to get at their visitors for the evening.

Tisdale will be pleased with the character of the players who kept going and on another night perhaps things could have been different.

Jurgen Klopp, meanwhile, got to see a number of his bright young players come in and control a game – as the more senior Reds have done so far this season – and that will please him greatly.

2-0 it finished to the away side, then, and perhaps that was just about right.