Unai Emery’s perpetual desire for control was invariably going to be tested by the emotion of Anfield and the friction between procedure and passion took little more than a minute to emerge.
The ball rolled back to Emiliano Martinez, who put his studs on the ball and waited, a common scenario when Aston Villa are in possession, particularly in the early days of Emery when opponents would be coaxed into pressing the stationary ball and, in turn, leave space for either Martinez or the defenders in front to rip passes into vacated areas.
Naturally, opponents have become alert to this tactic and have simply refused to play Emery’s game of cat and mouse. They, too, stand still. Martinez stands still. The ball stands still. And an impasse ensues.
Liverpool, though, were highly strung and anxious to get into the contest. Six defeats in their previous seven across all competitions called for a certain intensity. Liverpool’s front players pressed high, while the two central midfielders, Ryan Gravenberch and Alexis Mac Allister, locked onto Villa’s duo of Amadou Onana and Boubacar Kamara.
In doing so, Morgan Rogers, among the most proficient ball-carriers in the Premier League, was left unmarked. Virgil van Dijk had not yet stepped out of the defensive line, leaving the midfielder to receive from Onana and ramble into space in the fifth minute, as shown below.
The move was incisive, ending with Rogers hitting the post, and captured the very purpose of Emery wanting to invite opponents to press.
Arne Slot was immediately concerned and recognised that Van Dijk needed to mark Rogers.
Van Dijk’s natural defensive inclinations are to protect space rather than apply tight pressure on a forward. Consequently, on the third occasion, he instructed Andy Robertson to follow Rogers, with Liverpool’s captain instead marking Evann Guessand.
Villa’s build-up had added to the trepidation encompassing Anfield. The atmosphere was frenetic and at odds with the precision Villa had displayed in the move which ended with Rogers hitting the post. Emery later called the first 30 minutes “really fantastic.”
In the previous meeting here in November 2024, Slot explained Emery’s style had “been the same always”. Despite his perceived knowledge of his counterpart, Slot was headstrong on pressing Villa high on Saturday at the risk of leaving space for Villa to benefit from.
Martinez continued to take his time to identify an unmarked team-mate when Villa had an overload in the build-up. Often this was Lucas Digne, due to Mohamed Salah taking up, as it is known in football, a ‘cheating starting position’ between the centre-back and left-back. This meant Salah did not have to press either player with much vigour.
In the example below, Martinez makes the right decision and, crucially, with sufficient execution, finding a team-mate wide to his left. But this was also a portent of what was to come.
Liverpool’s focus on applying pressure, and Villa’s devotion to playing through it, trod the line between risk and reward. Every Villa goal kick or deep build-up resulted in either the visitors breaking into space and then the final third or, worryingly so, Liverpool turning the ball over in a dangerous area.
This was encapsulated in the successive attempts to play from Martinez. The first was a rushed clearance after Liverpool’s pressure had forced a kick long and a turnover centrally, with Martinez called into action.
Having saved the effort, the Argentina international rolled the ball out quickly, with Kamara finding Rogers, once more free. The move from left to right culminated in Matty Cash hitting the crossbar.
It was an all-or-nothing tussle. Two minutes later, Pau Torres’ pass was intercepted on the edge the area by Dominik Szoboszlai, who shot to Martinez’s right.
If Villa’s win against Manchester City was built on subtle tweaks, the approach at Anfield centred on sticking to default settings.
Slot had been open about Liverpool’s troubles in defending against direct teams. Emery would have known this, like every other manager who has recently played Liverpool, given no side has faced more long passes than them this season. Villa’s directness came in the form of long throws.
In hindsight, a day earlier Emery had offered clues on how he felt was the best way to beat Liverpool. In his pre-match media duties, the Spaniard asserted that he was not in the Midlands to “waste time” and, responding to the fact that Liverpool were the only side out of the proverbial “Big Six” he was yet to vanquish, he insisted that Villa have to be “the protagonists” in matches. The insistence on short passes provided an immediate route to accruing control.
Villa, though, stopped having the same success as the main character as players dropped deeper in the final 15 minutes of the first half, giving ground literally and figuratively, which unsettled the momentum.
Liverpool striker Hugo Ekitike had a goal ruled out for offside before Villa’s all-or-nothing build-up on the stroke of half-time resulted in a Martinez pass, intended for Torres, going straight to Salah, standing in that ‘cheating’ position.
Salah rolled the ball into an empty net and looked sheepish in his celebrations. The “huge mistake” Emery described post-match may have felt a rarity but had been a possibility throughout the half.
“We need to try to play with personality through our structure and through our roles and take good positioning,” explained Villa’s manager. “Pau was getting his position to play with this pass and then through (the lines) with those passes to feel good. But in that case, lost the ball.”
In truth, Villa never recovered. The 2-0 defeat was the same scoreline as last year, with avoidable errors, like when Liverpool broke from Villa’s attacking corner back then, punished.
“Mistakes happen in football and we made two of them today,” Villa defender Ezri Konsa perfectly summarised to TNT Sports. “Two sloppy passes and they scored two goals.”
Villa are struggling to create definite openings, scoring nine goals in 10 matches and having registered this season’s third-lowest expected goals (xG) rate of any top-flight side, behind Burnley and West Ham United. The best opportunities at Anfield came from Villa’s deep build-up, yet so too did Liverpool’s.
