By the end of the 90 minutes, one of these sides would lose their 100% record.
Although they were fighting relegation last season, Aston Villa came into the match with the league’s longest unbeaten run, stretching to six games with their victory over Fulham. Dean Smith made one change, replacing Conor Hourihane with new signing Ross Barkley as they moved to a 4-2-3-1 shape.
Liverpool were forced into two changes to their regular 4-3-3 formation. Sadio Mane tested positive for Covid-19 and was replaced by new boy Diogo Jota, while Adrian took Alisson Becker’s place in goal due to injury.
Adrian immediately set the tone for the match by giving the ball away in his own box to put Liverpool behind after just four minutes. It was a similar mistake to one Alisson made early on in his Liverpool career against Leicester: attempting to play out when his teammate Joe Gomez wasn’t looking to receive the ball and he would be better served launching it downfield.
It wasn’t a disaster yet though. Going a goal behind was what it often took last season to shake Liverpool out of their slumber. Jota and Andy Robertson doubled up down the left to get the ball into crossing positions, while down the right Liverpool found themselves able to work through the gap between Tyrone Mings and Matt Targett. Targett and Jack Grealish would move wide early to ensure Mohamed Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold didn’t get space on the flank, leaving a gap inside that Liverpool could work their way through, usually with Naby Keita.
Roberto Firmino, watched closely by Mings, was badly miscontrolling anything that came his way, but Liverpool were creating good chances with neat passing moves.
It was Villa who scored next though. It could have happened minutes earlier when Barkley spurned a chance, but Grealish slipped a ball in behind for Ollie Watkins to cut onto his right and rifle past Adrian. With Robertson pushing forward in attack and both the Scot and Alexander-Arnold often drawn up the pitch to press, Liverpool’s backline was often left three-versus-four as Villa quickly pushed their four attackers forward. This was disastrous for Liverpool as the three remaining players couldn’t shift across to cover without leaving a man open, which meant that Grealish in particular was picking up the ball, running at Liverpool’s defence and given the time to pick out inch-perfect through balls to his teammates with the defenders reluctant to close him down.
Villa were timing their runs so well that they were making a mockery of Liverpool’s high line. If Villa could find someone in space – or alternatively just find Grealish, who could pick out great passes without needing much space – they could just loft a ball over the top to runners in the massive gap behind. The high line is important to Jurgen Klopp’s style but Liverpool, perhaps encouraged by VAR ensuring the correct decision, have taken it to extremes over the past year, maintaining it even when there’s no pressure on the ball and too often simply stopping rather than playing on as if the opposition couldn’t possibly be onside.
The third and fourth goals showed off both of these bad habits. While the third was a deflected volley from a cleared corner, the corner itself was won when Liverpool tried to keep their high line despite no one closing down Matty Cash as he hit a ball in behind. Thinking they had caught Villa offside, Robertson didn’t even bother to run back so Barkley picked up the ball and got a shot away.
The fourth saw Liverpool try to maintain their high line for a free-kick, jogging back as the onside Trézéguet sprinted in behind and squared the ball to Watkins to complete his hat-trick.
Liverpool had pulled one back through Salah but came out for the second half desperately needing goals, so Klopp brought on Takumi Minamino in place of Keita, switching to a 4-2-3-1.
After a slow ten minutes as Villa were happy to sit on their lead and Liverpool tried to regain control over the situation, Gomez gave the ball away on the edge of the area and Barkley added another with a heavily deflected shot.
Liverpool would soon get one back as Georginio Wijnaldum won the ball back in Villa’s half and Firmino found Salah with a great through ball to finish, but minutes later Villa won the ball in Liverpool’s half again and scored with another heavily deflected shot.
Grealish scored a second as he ran onto another pass in behind Liverpool’s high line, confirming this as the worst result for Liverpool in the Premier League era.
The match was a perfect storm of all the nagging issues that have been covered up by Liverpool’s results over the last year: the already high line being pushed up an extra few metres even when there’s no pressure on the ball for negligible benefit; the failure to play to the whistle when the opposition test that offside trap; the questionable ability of Adrian, who may be or may not be a solid number two, but is being called into action regularly enough that the better question may be whether or not he’s good enough to be Liverpool’s number one; the drop-off in Firmino’s ability to put the ball in the net (pushed to the extreme here as a drop-off in his ability to control the ball at all, albeit saved a little with an impressive assist in the second half); a confidence that has the air of complacency.
These concerns seemed laughable as Liverpool stringed wins together, but everything finally bubbled to boiling point in this match. Liverpool’s quality means that as they scored their second to bring up the score to 5-2, the commentator talked of a comeback. Even when they have put in a poor performance, they have found some way to get around it.
Here they failed, making it harder to simply ignore those issues. Such a dramatic failure may be a horrific embarrassment, but it also can’t be glossed over or justified. While not needing wholesale changes as Southampton were forced into after their 9-0 loss last season, Liverpool supporters will hope this humbling will sharpen the team.
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