Aston Villa suffered a 2-0 loss to Liverpool at Anfield on Saturday night as we frustratingly fell to a fourth consecutive defeat across all competitions.
The hosts secured all three points through goals from Darwin Nunez and Mohamed Salah, and that in turn resulted in another defeat for Unai Emery and the players as our dip in form continues.
READ MORE: Villa dealt injury blow and potential concern as Emery provides update
Our focus now is on Crystal Palace at home on November 23 after the international break concludes, and it’s hoped that we can build some form and confidence again heading into the festive period as we look to put a difficult run behind us and get back on track.
Emery rightly encouraged by improvement in performance
One of the important positives to come from this game was our performance level, as we were a lot better compared to how we played against Tottenham and particularly Palace and Club Brugge in our previous losses.
While we were defensively disciplined for the most part, we posed a threat throughout the game as we enjoyed periods of control and got back to playing with some sense of rhythm and fluidity.
Ultimately it ended in disappointment, but there were encouraging signs there for Emery and his squad to believe that we moved in the right direction this weekend in our bid to return to winning ways.
Jacob Ramsey injury a bitter blow
It seems as though Ramsey just can’t avoid continuously suffering injury setbacks, as he limped off with a hamstring issue at the end of the first half in this encounter.
The expectation is that he will be ruled out of training over the break and will need weeks to recover and get back to being available for selection, and it’s a blow for him as he continues to suffer these issues just as he’s finding peak condition.
He showed top intelligence and positional awareness on Saturday as he picked up the ball in pockets of space and drove forward to give us direction in attack, but he’ll be hoping to add a more decisive end-product to his play when he does come back from his latest injury.
Villa attack lacking a clinical edge
While we certainly played better and created good chances this weekend compared to how we’ve struggled in our last games, the Villa attack continues to be wasteful and lacks a clinical edge to make the difference.
Whether that’s Morgan Rogers missing big chances, Ollie Watkins playing his part in our overall play but lacking goals recently or Leon Bailey struggling for form, across the board we’re not at our best in the final third.
It’s something we have to fix quickly as at this level, you get punished if he don’t take your chances and score goals consistently. Hopefully, we’ll rediscover that ruthlessness after the break but that comes through regaining confidence, which follows on from finding the back of the net on a consistent basis.
Still conceding poor goals and lacking clean sheets
Villa have been effective in settling into games, getting a foothold and putting ourselves in a position to go on and win by setting a solid foundation.
However, while not scoring enough goals has been a problem, so has our sloppy and porous defensive play as we’re still conceding soft goals and not keeping enough clean sheets.
Despite being able to limit Liverpool’s threat in general across the entire game, they continuously broke on the counter-attack from our corners and scored with two of them, and it could have been worse. We have to be more resolute and robust in our defensive work otherwise it’s going to keep hurting us.
Chance to regroup over the international break
The break comes at a good time for Villa given our recent form and to give everyone a chance to rest and reset both physically and mentally.
After the high of our start to the Premier League campaign and winning run in the Champions League, we’ve dropped our level since, and Emery conceded that we’re below our usual standards as of now but he’s confident we’re on the right track.
While we’ll hopefully come through unscathed in terms of avoiding any further injury setbacks for players on international duty, getting back to winning ways against Palace later this month is now of paramount importance, and so we have to use this break as best as possible to prepare ourselves for a big run.
