Key events
FULL TIME: Liverpool 2-0 Aston Villa
Liverpool go five points clear at the top of the Premier League.
90 min +3: Liverpool are seeing this out easily now. The same couldn’t be said before Salah’s clincher. Villa have pushed them hard. Liverpool stood firm.
90 min +2: A free kick for Villa out on the right. McGinn swings it to the far stick, where Kelleher claims and launches a quick counter. But the pinball game on the halfway line doesn’t go in Salah’s favour this time.
90 min +1: On TNT, Lucy Ward names Mohamed Salah as her player of the match. “The match-winner,” she explains. “That’s all there is to say.”
90 min: There will be four additional minutes.
88 min: The Liverpool fans sing their new song about Arne Slot. All of them together are nearly as loud as Jurgen Klopp during his farewell do last season.
87 min: Maatsen dribbles hard down the left and reaches the byline, but his cutback isn’t all that, and Konate is able to clear. Villa reminding Liverpool quickly that this game still isn’t over quite yet.
86 min: Van Dijk helps Torres up. Endo comes on for Mac Allister.
85 min: There’s a VAR check on a potential penalty at the other end, before the goal, but Torres ran into Gravenberch rather than the other way round. The goal stands!
GOAL! Liverpool 2-0 Aston Villa (Salah 84)
McGinn, Duran and Torres stroke passes down the left and win a throw. Villa have enjoyed 75 percent of possession during the last five minutes. They fling the ball into the mixer. Torres goes over, but Liverpool break upfield. Salah wins a 50-50 on the halfway line, makes it all the way down the inside-right channel and into the box, draws Martinez, and despite having Diaz free in the middle, gives the keeper eyes before flipping over him and in!
82 min: … then up the other end, Duran prepares to slam home a left-wing cross, forcing Van Dijk to hook behind for a corner. This one causes Liverpool trouble, Philogene nearly bundling home at the far stick, but the ball loops over the bar. Kelleher had it covered. Just. This game is really in the balance, with Villa giving Liverpool a serious workout.
81 min: … and Liverpool counter from a Villa corner again! The hosts flood upfield. Diaz shapes to shoot from the edge of the box only for Konsa to slide in and somehow hold off both Diaz and Szoboszlai! What a block!
80 min: Tielemans swings the corner into a crowded six-yard box. Kelleher comes to collect, but Konate eyebrows it away for another corner instead. Maatsen and McGinn play this one short, and earn another off Robertson. Maatsen to swing this one in long from the right.
79 min: Rogers works his way down the left to earn another Villa corner. Tielemans trots across to take.
78 min: From the resulting free kick, Villa nearly beat Liverpool at their own game, countering at speed, Philogene considering a shot from the edge of the box. Diaz nips back from a long way out to nick the ball away, just in time. The home fans applaud his efforts warmly.
77 min: Kamara is booked for grabbing a handful of Gravenberch’s shirt.
75 min: Szoboszlai barrels down the right and looks for Gakpo at the far stick with a low cross. Konsa fresh-airs a clearance – or does he deliberately dummy? Either way, it flummoxes Gakpo, who is surprised into missing the ball himself. All very odd. A big chance, though.
74 min: … and here they come. Digne and Onana off, Maatsen and Kamara on.
73 min: It’s all a bit scrappy. Villa prepare some more changes.
71 min: The free kick’s hit long. Gakpo wafts the ball back into the mixer from the left, but that’s easy pickings for Martinez. Liverpool soon come again at Villa, though, Gakpo this time looking far more threatening as he advances down the left wing. He cuts infield only to get his shot all wrong. Into the stand it disappears.
70 min: Another long Van Dijk pass, this time down the right, is brought down by Salah, who is then slammed to the ground by McGinn. A free kick that Szoboszlai will take, with pretty much everyone else in the Villa box.
68 min: Van Dijk rakes a long pass down the left flank for Diaz, who should break free into the box but takes a heavy touch and can only hook harmlessly into the centre from the byline. Easy for Villa to mop up.
66 min: Both teams make a double change. Liverpool replace Jones and Ayler Nunez with Gakpo and Szoboszlai, while Villa swap out Watkins and Bailey for Duran and Philogene.
64 min: Mac Allister swings the free kick long towards Diaz on the left-hand edge of the six-yard box. Diaz wins a header, though not in any meaningful way. Goal kick.
63 min: Liverpool pass and probe, hither and yon. Eventually Watkins clips Bradley out on the right. Free kick.
61 min: Liverpool launch a rare second-half attack. Salah and Diaz take turns to fail to get shots away. Nunez eventually has a dig, but his low swerving drive eventually goes straight into Martinez’s arms.
60 min: Emery continues to go at the fourth official. He’s not happy at all. You’ve certainly seen penalties given for less. But nobody knows anything these days.
58 min: Digne delivers, Bradley clears. Tielemans complains about a Bradley tug on the shirt of Torres. VAR checks, but with the referee having previously waved play on, there’s not enough in it to change the decision. Unai Emery certainly does not agree. He rants away on the touchline.
57 min: Anfield is significantly quieter as a result, and the anxiety is palpable when Bradley upends Watkins out on the Villa left. Free kick. Villa load the Liverpool box.
56 min: Some more slower Slot-style control. Liverpool have enjoyed 75 percent possession since the restart, though it’s Villa who have looked more threatening on the whole. A work in progress, albeit one that could go five points clear this evening.
54 min: Salah’s loose backpass nearly sets up Rogers and Watkins on the edge of the Liverpool box. Bradley comes across to snuff out the danger and hammer clear. This match is properly in the balance at the moment.
52 min: Liverpool have launched a couple of Kloppesque counters this evening. Now they revert to Slotball, patiently passing it around the middle to establish some control
50 min: So yeah, Darwin Nunez as free-jazz phenomenon, then. If anything’s the soundtrack to his style of play, it’s surely this from the Albert Ayler Trio’s 1965 classic Spiritual Unity. Ayler “barges ferociously” through the track, according to our man John Fordham, which sounds about right.
48 min: Diaz and Robertson combine down the left. Robertson whips in a cross. Nunez meets it, six yards out, and has to score, but blasts his header wide left. Big miss.
47 min: Konate stays down, holding his knee, but soon afterwards gets back to his feet, albeit gingerly. He and Liverpool, their lead somehow still intact for now, play on.
45 min 24 sec: Villa should be level. Digne pumps long down the left. Konate’s header back out is weak, dropping to Rogers, who powers into the box, opens his body, and, like Nunez before him, slaps a shot wide right.
Villa get the second half underway. They’re kicking towards the Kop now. No changes, even though Digne had limped his way off the pitch at the end of the first half.
Half-time reading. Ed Aarons gives his verdict on the latest shock to the champions’ system.
HALF TIME: Liverpool 1-0 Aston Villa
That’s the end of an eventful half. Somewhere, in a parallel universe, four goals have been scored from Villa corners, two for Liverpool on the break by Nunez, two for Villa through flashing close-range headers from Onana and Carlos. But here we are. It’s been an entertaining, open game. Expect more goals, and plenty of fun, in the second half. Saturday night’s alright.
45 min +4: Liverpool stroke it around patiently at the back, before eventually breaking clear of the press and tearing off upfield. Salah slips Diaz into acres down the left. Diaz feeds Robertson on the overlap. Robertson crosses low, where Nunez and Jones wait to tap home … but Torres arrives just in time to hook away from danger. So close to a second!
45 min +3: Tielemans is booked for a cynical tug on an in-flight Jones.
45 min +2: … to be replaced by Villa’s captain McGinn.
45 min +1: The board says three additional minutes; there will surely be more now, as Ramsey slowly limps off …
45 min: Salah dribbles gracefully down the right and has a couple of chances to deliver a cross, but overthinks it, and eventually runs the ball out of play for a goal kick. Before the game can restart, Ramsey goes down holding his hamstring.
43 min: Nope. It’s cut back to Gravenberch, who flays a shot into the Kop. Villa’s corners delivering much more bang for your buck.
42 min: Salah takes a heavy touch in the Villa box, but Ramsey, attempting to snaffle the loose ball, has a clank of his own to concede a cheap corner. All the action has come, one way or another, from Villa corners so far. How about a Liverpool one?
41 min: Nunez cuts in from the left and lashes a low, hard drive straight at Martinez, who handles well.
40 min: Villa are giving Liverpool a good game here, and the home fans try to get their team going again. Anfield remains a cauldron of noise. “If David Coote is the most idiosyncratic Premier League referee, then he’s a perfect match for Nuñez’s free-jazz interpretation of being a top-flight striker,” argues Andy (not that one) Flintoff, not inaccurately.
38 min: … Carlos flashes another header goalwards from the same position as Onana before him. Kelleher makes a point-blank stop on his line, Gravenberch puts his body in the way to ensure the loose ball isn’t forced home, then the ball’s half cleared. It’s then swung in deep from the right, and Digne can only ripple the side netting with Kelleher on walkabout. Three huge chances for Villa in not much more than 60 seconds.
37 min: Rogers forces another corner down the right. Digne takes. Onana rises at the near stick and eyebrows a powerful header goalwards. Kelleher tips over. Then from the next corner …
36 min: Digne crosses dangerously from the left. Bailey nearly gets onto it at the far stick, but he’s one yard short of connecting. Villa are creating chances.
34 min: Rogers is booked for a clumsy late slide on Van Dijk. It wasn’t the best challenge, but it wasn’t the worst either, so that seems about right. You can depend on David Coote!
33 min: Salah floats a cross-cum-shot in from the right, the result of another Villa giveaway. Martinez claims the ball and issues some beneficial advice to his team-mates in the animated style.
32 min: Another Villa corner … and it should be another Liverpool goal. The hosts tear clear again, and Nunez is sent through from the halfway line! He enters the box, opens his body, and with only Martinez to beat, lashes a wild shot high over the bar and wide right. Kári Tulinius must be in heaven right now.
31 min: TNT Sport have just shown a replay of the goal which includes referee David Coote gesticulating in a way which suggests he doesn’t think Bailey’s challenge on Salah was even a foul. So there’d have been no red had Nunez missed. You have to wonder about Coote sometimes. He’s by some distance the most, eh, idiosyncratic official in the Premier League.
