EPL: 'Now we are candidates' - Salah stars as Liverpool go five points clear at the top
Arne Slot’s in-form side took full advantage of Manchester City’s defeat at Brighton & Hove Albion earlier in the day, with Salah scoring one and setting up another to condemn Villa to their fourth consecutive defeat in all competitions.
Benefitting from Salah’s fantastic work, Darwin Nunez broke the deadlock in the 20th minute, firing home from a tight angle.
Unai Emery’s team did have chances of their own, with Caoimhin Kelleher making brilliant saves to deny Amadou Onana and Diego Carlos, but Salah ensured the home faithful could relax when he dinked over Emiliano Martinez on the counter-attack in the 84th minute.
While Liverpool, with nine wins from 11 matches, sit pretty at the top, Villa are in eighth place. Emery's side are level on points with Arsenal, Chelsea and Fulham.
| Position | Club | Played | GD | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Liverpool |
11 | +15 | 28 |
| 2 |  Man City |
11 | +9 | 23 |
| 3 |  Nott'm Forest |
10 | +7 | 19 |
| 4 |  Brighton |
11 | +4 | 19 |
How the match unfolded
Villa had the better of the opening exchanges, and Leon Bailey was unlucky to head just over at the back post from Youri Tielemans’ left-wing cross 15 minutes in.
But Liverpool opened the scoring five minutes later, as Salah raced clear on the break before being brought down by Bailey. Nunez was there to sweep up, though, taking a heavy touch to his right and firing ruthlessly home.
The Salah-Nunez combination almost struck gold for the Reds again, but the latter blazed over at the end of a blistering counter-attack. That profligacy could have cost Liverpool had Kelleher not made two fine saves at the other end, tipping Onana’s header over and instinctively denying Carlos from the resulting corner.
Morgan Rogers fired off target as Villa kept up the momentum after the restart, and the visitors had hopeful penalty appeals waved away for a possible tug on Pau Torres, with VAR confirming the referee’s on-field decision.
But with six minutes of normal time remaining, Salah made sure of the points for Liverpool, racing clear on yet another counter-attack, and duly keeping his cool against Martinez.
Sensational Salah lights up Anfield
Salah lived up to expectations once more as he continued his outstanding form, producing a goal and assist to put Liverpool clear of their stuttering title rivals.
The talismanic forward is not letting any uncertainty over his future impact his performances, and started this game as he meant to go on when he curled a delightful pass, with the outside of his foot, through to Nunez after just two minutes.
Salah then had the vision, and the turn of pace, to spot Virgil van Dijk’s curling ball to race clear from the halfway line for Nunez’s opener, getting his pass away despite Bailey’s desperate attempts to get back.
The Egyptian then took it upon himself to run box-to-box moments later, to set up the Uruguayan once more. And it was a similar run that ultimately saw Salah get on the scoresheet himself late on, to put the result beyond doubt.
Having sprinted clear after winning the ball on the halfway line, Salah – up against the 2024 Yashin Trophy winner Martinez – delayed just enough to draw the Argentinian into a sprawl, and then delicately lifted the ball home in a neat finish.
One blip for Liverpool was the loss of Trent Alexander-Arnold to injury in the first half, though the international break has at least come at a good time should the full-back need a stint in the treatment room.
Corners prove to be Villa’s Achilles heel
Emery’s high defensive set-up at corners proved Villa’s undoing, but also nearly produced an equaliser.
Liverpool’s opener came directly from the visitors' failure to capitalise on their own corner as Van Dijk controlled the loose ball in defence before setting Salah free.
Had Nunez not gone on to score in that move, it would have been interesting to see if the referee had gone back to punish Bailey, who committed a clear foul on Salah.
The hosts were able to replicate the move just 10 minutes later as Salah took the ball away himself from another failed corner and once more burst upfield and away from Villa’s scrambling defenders.
While Nunez could not finish on that occasion, Villa had clearly left themselves open at the back.
But when the corners worked, Emery’s side looked threatening, as Carlos proved in the 38th minute when he latched onto a delivery at the near post to force a fine save from Kelleher.
Ollie Watkins’ follow-up also had to be cleared off the line as the visitors – who lost Jacob Ramsey to injury – were thwarted. It was risk v reward, and in the end, there was just too much risk.
Club reports
What the managers said
Arne Slot: "We know it’s a long season where we have to continuously be on top of our game because the likes of Arsenal, Man City, and Chelsea, and all these other clubs, are able to win just as many games as we did in the first 15 to 16 games. So, we have to stay on top of our game, which is never going to be easy but we’ll push for it as much as we can. A win against a very good team like Aston Villa, who have done so well in the last few years, is always important. We did put effort into defending because their main threat in my opinion, was their set-pieces, so we had to do a lot to prevent them from scoring and one or two times we needed our goalkeeper for that."
Unai Emery: "We played with the plan we had. To get some points here is very difficult and maybe we needed more. We conceded two easy transitions for them from corners. We also created two good chances from corners and we competed like we needed to get something, but we didn’t get points here. We are some points under the level we had last year, but the Premier League is very difficult and it’s tight with other teams in the table."
