We look ahead to Saturday’s Premier League game at Anfield with our Liverpool vs Aston Villa prediction and preview. Can the champions get back on track?
Liverpool vs Aston Villa: The Key Stats
Despite recent form, Liverpool are the favourite with the Opta supercomputer, winning 56.9% of 10,000 simulations prior to the match.
The Reds have won 11 and lost just one of their last 15 Premier League meetings with Aston Villa.
Mohamed Salah is one goal contribution off the Premier League record for the most for a single club.
Liverpool are in a terrible rut. They have lost six of their last seven games in all competitions for only the second time in the last 70 years. They are looking to avoid losing five consecutive league matches for the first time since September 1953. Can they break out of their slump against Aston Villa?
The visitors’ recent form suggests not. Villa are unbeaten in six Premier League games, the second longest streak in the division behind Bournemouth (eight). Villa have won their last four matches in the competition, a run that includes a 2-1 victory at Tottenham and last weekend’s 1-0 win against Manchester City.
That latter match gives Unai Emery’s side the opportunity to become the first team since Leicester’s title-winners in February 2016 to beat Man City and Liverpool in consecutive matches (2-0 versus the Reds, 3-1 vs City).
That Leicester team also offers a parallel for Liverpool. They have lost their last four Premier League matches, with the Foxes in 2016-17 the only reigning champions of the modern era to lose five in a row. In top-flight history, there have been seven instances of a reigning champion losing five consecutive games, three of which were Liverpool (in 1906-07, 1923-24 and 1947-48).
There is a clear blueprint for Villa to follow to potentially add the Reds of 2025-26 to this list of ignominy. Liverpool’s opponents have played 571 long passes against them in the Premier League this season, the most any side has faced, while that works out as 20.5% of their opponents’ passes coming via long passes, also the highest percentage against any side. It has undoubtedly unsettled their preferred method of play.
Liverpool’s problems
However, the Villans are not one of the division’s long-ball teams. It doesn’t mean they can’t play so on a one-off occasion, but their route to success could be long-distance in a different sense.
Only Bournemouth (six) have scored more Premier League goals from outside the box this season than Aston Villa (five), with Matty Cash responsible for two of those. It makes the Villa full-back one of four players with multiple goals from distance this season (with Antoine Semenyo, Danny Welbeck and Moisés Caicedo also on two).
Cash has started all nine league matches this season so is very likely to feature at Anfield. Harvey Elliott won’t be involved as he can’t face his parent club, while Emiliano Buendía, Andrés Garcia and Youri Tielemans are injured.
The issues with Liverpool’s squad explain why Arne Slot took no risks with his first-choice players in the Carabao Cup against Crystal Palace in midweek. The Dutchman made 10 changes and fielded a team made up of inexperienced youngsters and out-of-form fringe players, unsurprisingly leading to a 3-0 defeat to the Eagles.
It’s possible Ryan Gravenberch and Alexander Isak will return to the squad, which will help, but Alisson Becker, Jeremie Frimpong, Curtis Jones and long-term absentee Giovanni Leoni will miss the match through injury.
The sight of Villa may enable Mohamed Salah to add to his strike at Brentford last week as he looks to break out of his recent slump. He has an excellent record against Villa, having scored or assisted (or both) all six times he has faced them at Anfield. Only once has he played more than 64 minutes against the Villans anywhere without finding the net or setting up a teammate to do so.
Salah has 275 goals and assists combined in the Premier League for Liverpool (187 goals, 88 assists), one behind the record for a single club. The holder is Wayne Rooney at Manchester United (with 183 goals, 93 assists), but perhaps the honour will change hands this weekend.
Mohamed Salah goal involvements for Liverpool
Liverpool are the first side in English top-flight history to win their first five matches in a season but then lose each of their next four. Villa could become the second side to win none of their first five games in a top-flight season then win five in a row, after Preston North End in 1936-37.
In a season as crazy as this, what will happen here looks increasingly difficult to predict. What is certain is that Liverpool are in more desperate need of three points.
Liverpool vs Aston Villa Head-to-Head
Liverpool’s form against Aston Villa is far stronger than their recent run of results.
The Reds have won six of their last seven Premier League home games against Villa, drawing the other. They had been winless against them in four at Anfield before then.
While Villa enjoyed a stunning 7-2 win over the then-defending champions at Villa Park in October 2020, it was very much an aberration in this head-to-head. It is their only win in their last 15 Premier League games against Liverpool, a sequence that includes 11 defeats.
If recent form favours the visitors here, history very much does not.
Liverpool vs Aston Villa Prediction
The Opta data has landed in favour of a home win.
Liverpool were victorious in 56.9% of the supercomputer’s run-throughs of the match. The next most likely outcome is a draw, at 22.3%, with a win for Aston Villa rated as a 20.8% probability.
The problem for Arne Slot is that Liverpool will have been favourites for many of their recent defeats, maybe all of them. The Reds are in such bad form that they are even overpowering the supercomputer.
Liverpool v Aston Villa Opta prediction 2025-26
Liverpool vs Aston Villa Predicted Lineups
Liverpool: Giorgi Mamardashvili, Conor Bradley, Ibrahima Konaté, Virgil van Dijk, Milos Kerkez, Dominik Szoboszlai, Alexis Mac Allister, Florian Wirtz, Mohamed Salah, Cody Gakpo, Hugo Ekitiké.
Head coach: Arne Slot
Aston Villa: Emiliano Martínez, Matty Cash, Ezri Konsa, Pau Torres, Lucas Digne, Boubacar Kamara, Amadou Onana, Evann Guessand, Morgan Rogers, John McGinn, Ollie Watkins.
Head coach: Unai Emery
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams. This score is 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 this weekend, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
Premier League Stats Opta
Subscribe to our football newsletter to receive exclusive weekly content. You should also follow our social accounts over onX, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.******