Liverpool 5 Aston Villa 0: Bill Howell's big match verdict

Mar 23 2009 by Bill Howell, Birmingham Mail

Villa will also have to ditch their bold 4-4-2 approach and adopt the system that bought them so many points around the turn of the year.

Are Villa or O’Neill this bad?

Of course not. But the best season in 13 years and the first season of direct qualification for Europe in a decade are hollow statistics right now.

The decisions to put a reserve side out in Moscow and to travel to Dubai after the Manchester City defeat also do not look good.

But had Villa beaten Stoke, had they seen off Wigan as they should have done convincingly, had they taken advantage of their early dominance against Tottenham....

Ifs and buts, ifs and more buts.

Liverpool were almost ahead from the first minute here through Martin Skrtel’s header.

Soon afterwards Gerrard was clean through on to a Fernando Torres through ball, so it wasn’t as if the danger signs weren’t there.

Less than eight minutes in and Dirk Kuyt rifled Liverpool ahead after Gerrard’s free-kick was headed on to the crossbar.

Gerrard went close to making it 2-0 from Riera’s deflected cross. But there was no respite and the game was effectively over when skipper Gareth Barry floated over a free-kick straight into Pepe Reina’s arms.

His huge hoof down the middle had Barry sprinting back trying to get back at Riera who had a couple of yards on him.

With all Villa’s big guns trotting back at the other end it was Reo Coker who was left exposed and the ball sailed high over his head. Reira caught it just right and smashed a shot in off the woodwork.

Villa went to pieces with Brad Friedel passing to Alvaro Arbeloa in the penalty box.

He should have shot but instead tried to slip in Torres only for Curtis Davies to snaffle the chance with a desperate lunge.