Despite Mo Salah lashing in 12 goals in his last 16 games, Unai Emery believes Trent Alexander-Arnold is the main Liverpool threat to his Aston Villa side this weekend. On Villa’s high line and the threat Liverpool post knowing they’ve lost just once at home all season,
Unai Emery said: “We’ve had to be very clinical in analysing how to get the best performances defensively. From my experiences, from when I arrived here, it’s important to work defensively a lot with the players. It’s very important to be connected with the players with the line – higher and lower. But of course, when the opposition are analysing us, they are going to work and will try to beat that line and score goals – so we have to always be very alert. We have been doing very well in this. Against Tottenham, that was very good work. With Son, Richarlison, it was very difficult for us to hold the line – but again, we were connected. Saturday though is a very different challenge. But we have spoken in training about how we can be alert to them if they are practising something to threaten us. Someone like Arnold can be a danger for us. I think [Liverpool] are playing better. I don’t know whether that is because they are playing with Arnold inside trying to get a different shape with the ball. But I really think Arnold is playing his best football and doing very good passes, short and long, right and left and being clinical with his passes. They have very good players to run behind and to get the ball and do one to one. They are very confident and they are feeling very good with this shape and tactical change they did.”
With Brighton fully expected to beat already-relegated Southampton this weekend, it appears to be a shoot-out with Tottenham as to who’ll grasp that Europa Conference League place. Villa (Liverpool, Brighton) have to better Spurs’ results (Brentford, Leeds) in their final two games. On the game plan at Anfield,
Unai Emery said: “We are going to try to impose our shape well, our positioning, but we have to adapt and not let them play with Arnold’s qualities. We have to avoid their individual qualities and skills and do everything as a team. We have to be together as a team in a strong structure we are trying to create. We have to keep ball possession and attack the spaces. I followed Liverpool when they played the final with Klopp against Sevilla in 2017 when he arrived here. We won the final with Sevilla in the Europa League and they were out of Europe with no Champions League and no Europa and they started the process. The progress they made in the last six years is very high with the coach and the club structure and the players. It is a way I want to see and I want to take away, trying to take some reference of what they are doing. In Aston Villa I want to create and build our own way by being strong and trying to use some things from teams who did it.”
