Aston Villa clinch fourth place at the expense of Liverpool
Aston Villa finished fourth in the Premier League after a 4-2 win over Liverpool on Friday at Villa Park in the opening round of the 37th of the competition.
With this result, Aston Villa raised their tally to 62 points, moving up to fourth place in the standings and guaranteeing their official qualification for next season's Champions League, while Liverpool's balance was frozen at 59 points in fifth place.
The first half ended with Aston Villa leading by a goal without reply, as Morgan Rogers opened the scoring in the 42nd minute with a curling shot from inside the box following a pass from France international Lucas Dean.
In the second half, the game became more exciting after Dutchman Virgil van Dijk levelled the score for Liverpool in the 52nd minute from a header, taking advantage of the poor control of the Aston Villa defence, after an indirect free-kick by Hungary's Dominik Szoboszlai.
Aston Villa regained the lead after 5 minutes through Ollie Watkins, following an unforgivable mistake by Soboslai, who fell after losing balance, to lose the ball to Aston Villa, before the same player doubled the score with a third goal in the 73rd minute.
Aston Villa sealed the win with a fourth goal in the 89th minute, when Scotland's John McGinn fired a superb left-footed shot from outside the box, before Van Dijk came back and reduced the deficit with a goal in the 90+2nd minute with a header assisted by Dominic Szoboslay.
Slot explodes: We conceded incredible goals
Liverpool manager Arne Slot said after his side's big down: "After the score was (2-1), the game slipped out of our hands. Before that, I think we started well in the first 10 minutes of the second half, and then we controlled the game without creating any real chances to score, but it's not the first time this has happened to us this season."
"When it was 1-1 we were very close to making it 2-1, and then we conceded the second goal in a way that we haven't been through all season yet. We've conceded a lot of goals this season which is something you'd find hard to believe unless you actually experience it, and that's exactly what happened to us today.. Villa were the better team after the goal, and we lost the game."
"It's not about me or how frustrated I am, it's frustrating for everyone involved with the club – the players, the technical staff and certainly the fans.. It's frustrating for the players who are back in the game, in football you can get stumbled and slipped but it's very unfortunate. That's probably part of the current season. We know what we have to do next week."