By Opta Analyst | Created at 2024-11-17 20:55:50 | Updated at 2024-11-24 09:20:28
6 days ago
We have new favourites for the Premier League title in the eyes of the Opta supercomputer. Re-live Saturday’s action with the best facts and Opta data in our Liverpool vs Aston Villa stats page.
Liverpool are now rated as favourites for the Premier League title by the Opta supercomputer after they capitalised on Manchester City’s defeat to go five points clear.
The Reds battled to a 2-0 win over Aston Villa at Anfield on Saturday thanks to Darwin Núñez’s well-taken first-half strike.
That came a couple of hours after defending champions, Man City, were beaten 2-1 at Brighton, as Pep Guardiola suffered four successive defeats for the first time in his managerial career.
The combination of those two results saw Liverpool’s Premier League title chances improve to 59.3% according to the Opta supercomputer; it’s the first time this season City haven’t been deemed favourites and marks an incredible rise for the Reds, who only finished top in 5.1% of the pre-season simulations.
Núñez put Liverpool in front in the 20th minute against Villa, scoring from a tight angle after Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah led an ultimately devastating breakaway.
The Uruguayan striker squandered an even better chance soon after from another counterattack, with Villa struggling to contain the Reds’ dynamism in transition.
But Liverpool produced a more considered, controlled performance on the whole after the break, and Villa had little luck carving out opportunities.
The visitors were aggrieved not to be awarded a penalty for a tug of Pau Torres’ shirt by Conor Bradley, and Liverpool took full advantage of that let-off with six minutes to go.
Salah darted forward after blocking a Diego Carlos header just inside the Villa half and coolly slotted home past Emiliano Martínez.
Victory means Arne Slot has earned 28 points in charge of Liverpool (W9 D1 L1), the joint most by a manager after 11 Premier League games along with Guus Hiddink during his time at Chelsea.
Similarly, only in 2019-20 (31 – W10 D1) have Liverpool collected more points after 11 games of a Premier League season.
Their brilliant start to 2024-25 shows no sign of stopping.
Our Opta match centre delivers you all the Liverpool vs Aston Villa stats from their Premier League meeting at Anfield.
The match centre below includes team and player stats, expected goals data, passing networks, an Opta chalkboard and more. It gives you everything you need to do your own post-match analysis.
Underneath the match centre you can find the official Opta stats on the game as well.
Liverpool vs Aston Villa: Post-Match Facts
- Since the start of 2022-23, only Erling Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne (15) have combined for more Premier League goals than Darwin Núñez and Mohamed Salah for Liverpool (12), with this just the third assist from Salah.
- Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah is the first player in all competitions across Europe’s big five leagues this season to have registered double figures for both goals (10) and assists (10).
- Only Tottenham Hotspur (7) have scored more goals from fast breaks in the Premier League this season than Liverpool (5), two of which were scored against Aston Villa. Indeed, the five shots faced from fast breaks by Villa is their most in a Premier League game since October 2022 against Fulham.
- Aston Villa have lost four successive games in all competitions for the first time since April 2022, while they’ve lost consecutive league matches for the first time since May 2023.
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