Overview
- Aston Villa threatened early as Morgan Rogers struck the post and Giorgi Mamardashvili denied a deflected Matty Cash effort, with Hugo Ekitike’s header later ruled offside by VAR.
- Mohamed Salah punished Emiliano Martínez’s misplaced pass moments before half-time to open the scoring.
- Ryan Gravenberch, returning from injury, made it 2-0 on 58 minutes with a strike that deflected off Pau Torres.
- Liverpool secured their first clean sheet in 11 games and ended a run of four straight Premier League defeats.
- The result lifted the champions to third in the table, with a league trip to Manchester City after the Real Madrid tie.