It was a frustrating night for a young Liverpool U21 side who went down 2-0 to Southampton at the Staplewood training ground on Monday night.

The Reds' four-game winning run came to an end as goals from Ryan Seager, on 67 minutes, and Lloyd Isgrove, five minutes from time, earned an experienced Saints side all three points.

With Jerome Sinclair sealing a youth loan move to Wigan Athletic today, Michael Beale fielded Daniel Trickett-Smith as the focal point of his attack, with support either side from Sergi Canos and Harry Wilson.

Brad Jones returned to the bench for the first team at Swansea City, so Danny Ward started the U21s' clash in goal.

Southampton fielded the likes of James Ward-Prowse, Filip Djuricic, Florin Gardos and Matt Targett - and, in the end, experience was the big factor.

To compound Liverpool's misery, Wilson was sent-off for dissent after having what appeared to be a blatant free-kick when clean through on goal turned down.

Reflecting on the defeat, Beale told Liverpoolfc.com: "We actually started the game brightly although we were slightly off the level we have been playing at recently against an older and more experienced opponent.

"It would be easy to turn around and talk about the players we had missing with the likes of Jordan Rossiter, Ryan Kent, Jack Dunn and Samed Yesil unavailable, but the lads we put out there gave a good account of themselves.

"Canos was very good and caused them problems and Ovie Ejaria came off the bench to make his debut at U21 level and was excellent, showing some really nice touches.

"We had a great chance to take the lead before they opened the scoring and then they got the second when we were pushing for an equaliser in the final stages of the game.

"It was a shame to have Harry sent-off because he will now miss a few games.

"It was controversial how it happened because he was clean through and was fouled. The assistant referee gave us the free-kick only to see the referee overrule the decision, and Harry then gets a straight red card for contesting that.

"We now face another game when we host West Ham United at Chester on Friday night. We've had a really good run leading up to this game and we now have to pick ourselves up and go again."

Liverpool U21s: Ward, McLaughlin (Smith 61), Maguire, Cleary, Williams, Stewart, Canos, Chirivella, Trickett-Smith (Ejaria 80) Brannagan (Hart 80), Wilson.