Liverpool welcome Aston Villa to Anfield on Saturday with their season potentially on the brink of tatters already.
Aston Villa will face Liverpool at Anfield with a different idea in mind, however, as Unai Emery‘s side look to make it five consecutive league victories.
The Villans have enjoyed a superb resurgence over the last month, winning six of their last seven across all competitions since drawing to Sunderland.
Liverpool are the favourites to beat Villa, with the Premier League champions expected to eventually return to form.
But with £125million signing Alexander Isak set to be missing for Liverpool against Villa, Emery’s side will carry huge confidence.
Aston Villa can create unwanted history for Liverpool
Villa have not won at Anfield since 2014, when Gabby Agbonlahor scored the winner for Paul Lambert’s side.
Emery will see Saturday’s game as a terrific opportunity for his side, however, with Liverpool in a serious mess. After a monumental summer, the Reds had been expected to walk the Premier League once again.
And all seemed to be going swimmingly, with Arne Slot‘s side winning seven consecutive games across all competitions to kick off the season.
Defeat to Crystal Palace appears to have knocked the entire squad out of kilter, however, with Liverpool losing six of their last seven, with the latest again coming against Crystal Palace in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday.
Should Villa emerge victorious on Saturday, Liverpool will have suffered five consecutive league matches for the first time since September 1953.
On the other hand, it will be five consecutive league wins for the Villans, who last did that between March and April earlier this year.
On a statistical level, the two sides remain fairly well matched, with Villa allowing 11.7 expected goals against to Liverpool’s 12.
The Reds do dominate when it comes to expected goals, however, offering 16.1 to the Villans’ 7.3.
Villa will be ahead in the most important stat if they win on Saturday, however, and will hold a three-point advantage in the Premier League.
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Villa and Liverpool in bizarre swap of fates
It was on the same Premier League weekend that Villa secured the first three points of the season, while Liverpool suffered their first defeat.
Since that weekend, the two clubs have bizarrely mirrored each other. Every time the Reds have lost a game, the Villans have won one.
| Aston Villa | Liverpool |
| Aston Villa 1-0 Manchester City | Liverpool 0-3 Crystal Palace |
| Go Ahead Eagles 2-1 Aston Villa | Brentford 3-2 Liverpool |
| Tottenham 1-2 Aston Villa | Frankfurt 1-5 Liverpool |
| Aston Villa 2-1 Burnley | Liverpool 1-2 Manchester United |
| Feyenoord 0-2 Aston Villa | Chelsea 2-1 Liverpool |
| Aston Villa 3-1 Fulham | Galatasaray 1-0 Liverpool |
The one game Slot’s side have won, against Eintracht Frankfurt last week, was followed up on the following day by Villa’s only loss from the last seven, against Go Ahead Eagles.
Logic would suggest that the sides should, to continue the pattern, draw on Saturday. Emery will not settle for a point, though, and will hope his side can overturn their abysmal Anfield record.
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