Liverpool’s wait for a Premier League clean sheet since 2 March goes on, having conceded a swift equaliser against Aston Villa in the opening quarter-hour tonight.
After a comical own goal from Emiliano Martinez in the first two minutes, Youri Tielemans restored parity shortly afterwards, being left in acres of space to drill the ball past Alisson Becker.
Ian Doyle is covering the match at Villa Park, and he was critical of Alexis Mac Allister for conceding possession and inadvertently initiating the move which led to the Belgian levelling the score.
Writing in the Liverpool Echo’s live matchday blog (20:15), the journalist stated: “Mac Allister won’t be too happy with his part in that goal having given it away cheaply in midfield with a poor pass. That put Liverpool on the back foot and they never really got back on the front one. If that’s a phrase. Which it probably isn’t.”
Mac Allister is usually quite tidy in possession, boasting an 87.7% pass success rate this season prior to tonight (WhoScored) and misplacing only two passes in the opening half-hour against Villa (Sofascore), but he was uncharacteristically sloppy with that cheap giveaway in the lead-up to Tielemans’ goal.
It wasn’t just the Argentine who won’t be pleased, either, as Jarell Quansah was beaten rather easily by Ollie Watkins and could also have done with more support from Trent Alexander-Arnold.
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Luckily the result of this game won’t have any telling effect on Liverpool’s season, but the ever-demanding Klopp will surely bring up that goal in his postmortem to the squad over the next day or two.
It’s something for the Reds to tighten up on against Wolves next Sunday and, more importantly, for the subsequent campaign, but at least Cody Gakpo soon struck to restore the lead tonight!
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