Liverpool up to third in Premier League after comfortable 3-0 win over Aston Villa

LONDON – Liverpool continued their good run against Aston Villa in the Premier League, securing their 10th win in the last 13 games against them with a comfortable 3-0 victory at Anfield on Sunday.

The Reds have beaten Villa more times than any other team in history.

Despite this, the Villans had seemed like potentially tricky opponents for the Reds, having won their last two matches handily, scoring seven and conceding only once in the process.

The Reds had finished their last two games with 10 men and conceded first both times, before fighting back to beat Bournemouth and then Newcastle United.

But there was no such consternation on Merseyside on Sunday.

They took the lead after just three minutes with Dominik Szoboszlai’s maiden goal since his £60 million (S$102.3 million) move from RB Leipzig in the summer, and he said to expect more goals to follow.

From a Liverpool corner, the ball dropped to the Hungarian midfielder, who dispatched a half-volley from outside the box past Emiliano Martinez in the Villa goal. The Reds have now scored in each of their last 14 league matches.

He told the BBC: “At home against I don’t know how many people I am glad to score my first goal and there are going to be more coming.

“It’s always different, in the first home game we started not so well... the important thing was to come out well now and finish with 11 men. We did quite OK, quick to 2-0 and came out good and scored a goal in the second half too.”

But the goal was controversial as Ian Wright and particularly Peter Schmeichel in the Premier League Productions studio insisted it should have been disallowed, as Mohamed Salah, who was in an offside position, had obstructed Martinez’s line of sight.

Former EPL and Fifa referee Dermot Gallagher insisted that the match officials had made the right decision, but ex-Manchester United goalkeeper Schmeichel was not buying his explanation.

The incident comes a day after Fulham manager Marco Silva was livid that Manchester City’s second goal in their 5-1 win over the Cottagers was allowed to stand, calling it the “turning point” of the match.

Nathan Ake’s headed goal moments before the break – with the game tied at 1-1 – looked as if it would be disallowed as it appeared that Manuel Akanji was offside in front of goalkeeper Bernd Leno. Akanji leapt to dodge the ball and allow it to pass between his legs and into goal.

That controversy aside, it was largely a routine win for Jurgen Klopp’s men, who recorded their first clean sheet of the season to go third in the EPL on 10 points from four games.

They are behind Tottenham Hotspur on goal difference and two adrift of champions Manchester City, the only team with a perfect record after four matches.

On 22 minutes, Liverpool were 2-0 up. Trent Alexander-Arnold’s wonderful lofted ball over the Villa defence found Salah and the Egyptian proceeded to pick out Darwin Nunez in the box. The Uruguayan’s shot hit the post and flew back out before Villa fullback Matty Cash diverted it into his own net.

Ten minutes after half-time, the game was over after Salah scored from a Liverpool corner. This time, it was Nunez who glanced the ball into his path for him to poke home.

Villa manager Unai Emery told the BBC: “Maybe we were a little weak in some action and that was key in the first half. At 2-0 it was difficult but we tried to react, we had two very good chances at the beginning of the second half. But after the third goal it was very difficult to come back.”

Liverpool had reportedly rejected a £150 million bid for Salah from Al-Ittihad last week and, with the Saudi Pro League window not yet closed, Szoboszlai had a message for the Reds talisman.

He said: “We are of course speaking between each other but he wants to stay, he wants to be here and be with us. We are really happy – we need people in the team like him.”