Liverpool are now around halfway through their really tough run of fixtures yet their form has held – apart from only taking a point against Arsenal, they have continued to win every game. Arne Slot has now officially had the best start of any new Liverpool manager ever with 8 wins and 1 draw out of his opening 10 league matches.
What has been even more impressive is that his team have found ways to gather points even in the face of adversity. They went behind twice against Arsenal, only to fight back on both occasions. Against Brighton they went a goal down, and could have been further in arrears after a torrid first half, but came back strong just when they needed to in order to turn things around. They also showed mettle in Europe after being asked questions in the first half by Leverkusen in midweek before turning on the afterburners and gaining an impressive 4-0 victory.
The front players have all been impressive and continue to find ways to compliment each other, with Mo Salah’s numbers making him the pick of the bunch once again (7 goals and 5 assists) but confidence that a goal can come from elsewhere if needed. In midfield, Curtis Jones is on a tremendous run of form (94.8% pass completion, 80% dribble success and 61% ground duel success) and Virgil Van Dijk seems to be back to his imperious best in defence. Their results so far have been a true team effort.
In contrast, Villa have stuttered somewhat of late, winning only one of their last five league matches (drawing three and losing one) and also losing their perfect record in the Champions League (due to a Brugge penalty following a bizarre Tyrone Mings handball). This is perhaps the first real test of how their squad will cope with the dual pressures of playing in both domestic and European competition.
The early season form of Jhon Duran has, probably understandably, started to tail off a bit but talisman Ollie Watkins has started finding the net more regularly again and Morgan Rogers (3 goals, 2 assists and 5 big chances created) has continued his superb start to the season. It will be more of a worry to Unai Emery that his team have conceded 8 goals in those last 5 league matches and that overall this season they have conceded more goals than their xGA would suggest they should have.
It will be interesting to see if they will be able to get back on track and compete at Anfield. They are in need of a good performance to get their campaign running again but it may be that the international break is coming at just the right time for them to reset again. They will be thankful that they started their season strongly so that they have a foundation of results to build on.
Verdict
We are backing Liverpool heavily here, giving them a 62% chance of victory compared to just 15% for Aston Villa. The bookies go even further, going 70% for the home team and 16% for the Villains.
This very much fits in with the current form of both teams, as noted above, but it also means that there isn’t much value in just backing the result itself.
