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.
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).