Liverpool’s humbling defeat to Aston Villa marked the first time for the 2019/20 Premier League Champions to concede seven goals since 1963.
Jurgen Klopp has admitted his men “lost the plot” as Aston Villa recorded a famous 7-2 win against Liverpool. The day had already witnessed few shocking results with West Ham recoding a 3-0 win over Leicester City while Tottenham embarrassed Manchester United with a 6-1 win. The day was actually termed to be a “silly Sunday”.
Contrary, the biggest shock of all happened at Villa Park. Dean smith’s side ripped apart Klopp’s men from the very first whistle blow.
Adrian had stepped in for the injured Alisson. Needless to say, he was at fault for the hosts’ opening goal. The shot-stopper gifted Ollie Watkins an easy tap inside four minutes.
Soon, he doubled his lead midway through the first half with a remarkable effort.
Mo Salah halved the deficit soon after. But, Liverpool truly never looked comfortable at the back with Aston Villa capitalizing with every move forward.
McGinn’s deflected effort from outside the box restored Villa’s two-goal lead before Watkins completed his hat-trick before half-time.
In the second half, Klopp made changes to the system. Takumi Minamino came on for Naby Keita although the change failed to alter the outcome.
Ross Barkley soon found the back of the net to make it five for his side. Salah’s second of the game came as a mere consolation before Grealish scored twice to round off the record victory.
Klopp could be seen smiling in disbelief towards the end of the game. At the post-match conference, the German tried to explain exactly what went wrong at the pitch.
He said, “for different reasons, Aston Villa who did really well tonight forced all the mistakes that we made. We played into their hands with the first goal, with the second and the third. Then the game has a specific direction”.
“So yes. You can say Adrian made a mistake. It is obvious when he passed the ball there. Easy goal for them. But we have conceded goals like this in the past. Maybe not exactly like that. We obviously lost the plot. Our creating in the last third was good. It didn’t always get a goal but it was good. But when Villa got a chance, our protection was below average”.
“You could see it after the first half the body language dropped. But we are 4-1 down and how the game was, we should not stop playing. Just do the good stuff again but slightly better and finish the chances. We still had good moments. But they led to nothing whereas theirs always ended in a big chance or goal”.
“Villa did really well. But we did so bad. We can defend so much better than tonight. We lost it in the wrong moments. It is difficult and that means we cannot score”.