Jürgen Klopp will take charge of his final Premier League away game, as he takes his side to Villa Park on Monday night. We look ahead to the game with our Aston Villa vs Liverpool prediction and preview.
Aston Villa vs Liverpool Stats: The Quick Hits
- The Opta Supercomputer predicts that Jürgen Klopp’s final Premier League away game will end in success, with Liverpool winning 45.7% of the pre-match simulations.
- Liverpool have fared well at Villa Park in recent years, winning eight of their last nine trips there in the Premier League.
- With 67 points on the board with two games remaining, this is already Aston Villa’s best top-flight league season since 1992-93.
Match Preview
Aston Villa could secure UEFA Champions League football for the first time ever if they win this match on Monday night at Villa Park. Three points in this match would take them on to 70 for the season, with the maximum that Tottenham – currently in fifth place – could reach being 69.
Liverpool have already secured UCL football in 2024-25 after a season in the Europa League, but Jürgen Klopp will hope to end the season on a high following a disappointing loss of form that’s seen them fall out of the Premier League title reckoning.
Unai Emery’s side missed out on a UEFA Europa Conference League final berth on Thursday night, as they lost in Greece to Olympiakos and failed to turn around their first-leg deficit. Despite that loss, it’s been a brilliant season for the Spanish manager and his team.
With 67 points on the board with two games remaining, this is already Villa’s best top-flight league season since 1992-93 (74 points and a second-place finish), while they have already secured six points more than they did last season. On a points-per-game basis (considering three points for a win), this is Villa’s best top-flight season since 1980-81 (2.05), which was the campaign when they won their last league title.
Part of the reason for their great season has been the form of star forward Ollie Watkins. Should he score in this match, he’ll reach 20 Premier League goals in 2023-24. The last Aston Villa player to score 20+ in a top-flight campaign was Peter Withe in 1980-81 (20). He’s got a great record versus the Reds, having only scored more goals against Brighton (6) than he has versus Liverpool in the Premier League.
This will be Klopp’s final away game as Liverpool manager, with the German departing the club at the end of this season. Across Premier League history, only Pep Guardiola (2.21) and Alex Ferguson (1.90) have averaged more points per game in away matches than Klopp has (1.89).
Klopp hasn’t lost any of his last nine games against Villa boss Emery in all competitions (W6 D3), having lost his first ever meeting with him in the 2016 UEFA Europa League final when Emery was in charge of Sevilla.
Coming into this weekend, only Sheffield United’s Bramall Lane (73) has seen more goals than Villa Park (70) in the Premier League, and with two of the top five scoring teams in the competition this season playing in this match, expect goals.
Looking at the team news, Villa will still be without long-term injury absentees Tyrone Mings, Jacob Ramsey, Boubacar Kamara and Emiliano Buendía, while Morgan Rogers is likely to be out for the rest of the season after an injury suffered at Brighton last weekend. This game look too soon for Emery to reintroduce Youri Tielemans, Nicolò Zaniolo or Alex Moreno, but Emiliano Martínez returned in their loss in Greece on Thursday night to replace Robin Olsen in goal.
Liverpool don’t have any fresh injury concerns at the time of writing, with Joel Matip, Thiago Alcantara and Diogo Jota set to miss the remainder of 2023-24.
Aston Villa vs Liverpool Head-to-Head
Aston Villa have won just one of their last 12 Premier League games against Liverpool, losing 10 of those (one draw). That win, however, was a sensational 7-2 victory in October 2020 behind closed doors at Villa Park.
Other than that unexpected rout, Liverpool have fared well at Villa Park in recent years, winning eight of their last nine trips there in the Premier League. Overall, Liverpool’s 16 wins at Villa Park are more than they have collected at any other Premier League away ground.
No fixture in Premier League history has been won by the away side more often than Aston Villa versus Liverpool, with 22 of the 57 meetings between them being away wins.
Liverpool defeated Aston Villa in their Premier League meeting earlier this season at Anfield, running out 3-0 winners thanks to goals from Dominik Szoboszlai and Mohamed Salah either side of a Matty Cash own goal. Salah’s goal in that meeting is one of six that he’s scored in his last seven league appearances versus Villa. As it stands, the Egyptian forward is 10th in the Premier League all-time top scorers list with 157 goals.
Liverpool’s last trip to Villa Park ended in a 3-1 win on Boxing Day 2022. Salah opened the scoring that day before further goals from Virgil van Dijk and Stefan Bajcetic secured all three points. Ollie Watkins scored a consolation on the hour-mark.
Recent Form
Liverpool’s Premier League title challenge petered out in April, despite the month starting well with their 3-1 win over Sheffield United at Anfield. Following that victory, they drew at Manchester United before losing at home to Crystal Palace 1-0. They also exited the UEFA Europa League in April, losing 3-1 on aggregate to Serie A side Atalanta.
Further league points dropped in a defeat to rivals Everton (2-0) and a 2-2 draw in London at West Ham across the space of four days saw them fall behind both Arsenal and Manchester City. They showed improvement in last weekend’s 4-2 win over Tottenham at Anfield, in which they led 4-0 before the hour-mark thanks to goals from Salah, Andy Robertson, Cody Gakpo and Harvey Elliott.
Following back-to-back losses home and away at Olympiakos in the Europa Conference League semi-finals, either side of a 1-0 away defeat at Brighton, Aston Villa have lost three consecutive matches in all competitions for the first time since February 2023.
In the Premier League, they have won just one point in their last two games following that loss in Brighton and a 2-2 home draw with Chelsea. Villa haven’t failed to win three successive Premier League games this season, last doing so in February last year.
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system that assigns an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off on Monday night, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
Aston Villa vs Liverpool Prediction
The Opta Supercomputer makes Liverpool the favourites for this match on Monday night, with the Reds winning 45.7% of the pre-match simulations. Aston Villa picked up all three points in 26.8% of sims, while the points were shared 27.5% of the time.
With Liverpool’s Premier League title hopes over, are guaranteed to finish third following the results across the league this weekend. This is still an improvement on last season’s fifth-place finish, while they’ve already won 11 points more with two games to play.
Aston Villa’s excellent season means that they are likely to qualify for the UEFA Champions League for the first time ever. The supercomputer rates their chances of a top-four finish at 94.7% ahead of the weekend, with only Tottenham Hotspur (5.3%) a threat to that, now.
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