It's Liverpool vs Villarreal in the Champions League tonight
It's Liverpool vs Villarreal in the Champions League tonight
Good evening and welcome to our live coverage of Liverpool's Champions League clash against Villarreal. Kick-off at Anfield is 8pm.
The Reds have made the perfect start to the league phase. They followed up their 2-1 home triumph over Villarreal's La Liga rivals Atletico Madrid with a 6-3 success over LASK in a crazy game in Austria last week.
After that latter victory, injury-hit Liverpool then returned to winning ways in the Premier League with a 2-1 victory at Brentford on Saturday. But the victory came at a cost with Dominik Szoboszlai and Jeremie Frimpong coming off injured.
And with Victor Munoz, whose goal started the fightback against the Bees, absent from Tuesday's open training session at the AXA Training Centre, Andoni Iraola could be down to the bare bones this evening.
But will that stop the Reds from making it three wins from three in the Champions League? Paul Gorst and Ian Doyle will bring you all the build-up to kick-off, including team news when it drops, followed by an in-game commentary stream and all the post-match reaction and analysis.
Details how you can watch the match can be found HERE.
Not long now
The team news should drop at 6.45pm. Andoni Iraola did admit yesterday we could be surprised by his line-up.
Liverpool royalty in the house
Former Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez will be reunited with Robbie Fowler as he prepares to return to Anfield. The Spanish coach is scheduled to be on punditry duty for Amazon Prime alongside Fowler and Daniel Sturridge as the Reds take on Villarreal in the Champions League tonight.
The 66-year-old manager, who was most recently in charge of Greek giants Panathinaikos, is beloved by Liverpool fans for his six-year tenure, which brought Champions League glory in 2005. He added to his success by winning the FA Cup the following year, later reaching a second Champions League final in 2007 and narrowly missing out on the Premier League title in 2009.
Despite the adoration for Benitez, former striker Fowler has the distinction of being nicknamed ‘God’ by Liverpool supporters. The prolific centre-forward quickly scored 171 goals in 330 games before falling out of favour under Gerard Houllier and leaving for Leeds United in 2001.
Benitez provided Fowler with an opportunity to make an emotional return to Anfield when searching for a new striker in January 2006. As Liverpool prepare to face Villarreal, the club icons are set to reunite as pundits.
Wet evening
Not very dry today for the most part on Merseyside.
But not even poor weather can stop people from turning up for the Champions League, the best club competition in the world.
It's Villarreal for Liverpool this evening and Iraola's side will be looking to build on a couple of good away wins over the past week.
Mind you, they've been rubbish in the Premier League at Anfield so far.
Let's do this!
Iraola thoughts
Andoni Iraola, the Liverpool head coach, has been writing in the club programme ahead for tonight's match. Here's what he's had to say:
"Villarreal will be the second Spanish team we have faced in this competition already this season and they will be another difficult opponent. It is definitely worth remembering that they qualified for the Champions League by finishing third in La Liga, one place ahead of Atletico Madrid, and underlined their quality in the previous round of fixtures with a very good victory over Napoli. But we have home advantage so it makes sense that we do everything that we possibly can to use it. The atmosphere that our fans created in our last game at Anfield was special and even though we were not able to reward them with three points, it showed how much they are with us, which is something I really appreciate."
BRENTFORD, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 17: Andoni Iraola manager / head coach of Liverpool applauds after the Premier League 2026/27 match between Brentford and Liverpool FC at Gtech Community Stadium on October 17, 2026 in Brentford, England. (Photo by Catherine Ivill - AMA/Getty Images)
Andoni Iraola applauds after the Liverpool supporters after his side's come-from-behind win at Brentford(Image: Catherine Ivill - AMA/Getty Images)
What might have been
Andoni Iraola admits that but for the rejection of a work permit, Villarreal boss Inigo Perez might be in the home dugout at Anfield this evening.
Perez, a former Athletic Bilbao team-mate of Iraola's, brings his team to Merseyside to take on the Reds, who have won two from two in the Champions League this season and are favourites to extend their perfect record against their La Liga opponents.
At 38, Perez is six years Iraola's junior, and was around the first team squad at Athletic for five years alongside the Reds boss between 2009 and 2014.
He then served as Iraola's assistant boss at Rayo Vallecano for the 2022-23 season, but was unable to join his fellow Basque when he made the move to Bournemouth in 2023 because he failed to get a work permit.
Iraola worked closely with Tommy Elphick and Shaun Cooper at Bournemouth, and subsequently brought them to Liverpool when he joined the Reds in the summer.
He admits Perez was his initial choice though, and is wary of the challenges his friend's side will pose at Anfield.
Read the full story HERE
Evening all
Good evening and welcome to the ECHO's live blog as Liverpool return to Champions League action with a visit from Villarreal.
These two teams only tend to meet in semi-finals of European competition. They played in the last four of the Europa League over 10 years ago and met in the semis of the Champions League in 2022. Liverpool were successful both times.
So can the Yellow Submarine emerge from what are pretty wet conditions out there tonight with a rare W over the Reds?
We shall see.
Shall we?
Liverpool line-ups
You know the drill by now. Before every Liverpool game we get our writers to pick their predicted line-ups.
And you can read their picks for tonight's match right HERE.
Cody Gakpo could return to Liverpool's starting line-up tonight
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Liverpool vs Villarreal odds
If you fancy a flutter, bet365 are offering these match odds plus a special offer today with Money Back in Free Bets on any Tuesday 8pm UCL Match:
Liverpool 12/25
Draw 7/2
Villarreal 21/4
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Good evening
And welcome to our Liverpool vs Villarreal live blog.
The Reds have bounced back from that dispiriting defeat to Manchester City with back-to-back victories in the Champions League and the Premier League.
And it's back to the former of those competitions this evening as they look to follow up their win over Atletico Madrid with another against another La Liga side.
But with a very tricky Premier League encounter at home to free-scoring Brighton & Hove Albion to come at the weekend, will Andoni Iraola rotate his injury-hit squad?
We'll find out exactly if he does when the team news drops within the hour.
But stick with us until then for all the build-up.