Liverpool v Aston Villa: Premier League – live

45 min +4: Liverpool stroke it around patiently at the back, before eventually breaking clear of the press and tearing off upfield. Salah slips Diaz into acres down the left. Diaz feeds Robertson on the overlap. Robertson crosses low, where Nunez and Jones wait to tap home … but Torres arrives just in time to hook away from danger. So close to a second!

45 min +3: Tielemans is booked for a cynical tug on an in-flight Jones.

45 min +2: … to be replaced by Villa’s captain McGinn.

45 min +1: The board says three additional minutes; there will surely be more now, as Ramsey slowly limps off …

45 min: Salah dribbles gracefully down the right and has a couple of chances to deliver a cross, but overthinks it, and eventually runs the ball out of play for a goal kick. Before the game can restart, Ramsey goes down holding his hamstring.

43 min: Nope. It’s cut back to Gravenberch, who flays a shot into the Kop. Villa’s corners delivering much more bang for your buck.

42 min: Salah takes a heavy touch in the Villa box, but Ramsey, attempting to snaffle the loose ball, has a clank of his own to concede a cheap corner. All the action has come, one way or another, from Villa corners so far. How about a Liverpool one?

41 min: Nunez cuts in from the left and lashes a low, hard drive straight at Martinez, who handles well.

40 min: Villa are giving Liverpool a good game here, and the home fans try to get their team going again. Anfield remains a cauldron of noise. “If David Coote is the most idiosyncratic Premier League referee, then he’s a perfect match for Nuñez’s free-jazz interpretation of being a top-flight striker,” argues Andy (not that one) Flintoff, not inaccurately.

38 min: … Carlos flashes another header goalwards from the same position as Onana before him. Kelleher makes a point-blank stop on his line, Gravenberch puts his body in the way to ensure the loose ball isn’t forced home, then the ball’s half cleared. It’s then swung in deep from the right, and Digne can only ripple the side netting with Kelleher on walkabout. Three huge chances for Villa in not much more than 60 seconds.

37 min: Rogers forces another corner down the right. Digne takes. Onana rises at the near stick and eyebrows a powerful header goalwards. Kelleher tips over. Then from the next corner …

36 min: Digne crosses dangerously from the left. Bailey nearly gets onto it at the far stick, but he’s one yard short of connecting. Villa are creating chances.

34 min: Rogers is booked for a clumsy late slide on Van Dijk. It wasn’t the best challenge, but it wasn’t the worst either, so that seems about right. You can depend on David Coote!

33 min: Salah floats a cross-cum-shot in from the right, the result of another Villa giveaway. Martinez claims the ball and issues some beneficial advice to his team-mates in the animated style.

32 min: Another Villa corner … and it should be another Liverpool goal. The hosts tear clear again, and Nunez is sent through from the halfway line! He enters the box, opens his body, and with only Martinez to beat, lashes a wild shot high over the bar and wide right. Kári Tulinius must be in heaven right now.

31 min: TNT Sport have just shown a replay of the goal which includes referee David Coote gesticulating in a way which suggests he doesn’t think Bailey’s challenge on Salah was even a foul. So there’d have been no red had Nunez missed. You have to wonder about Coote sometimes. He’s by some distance the most, eh, idiosyncratic official in the Premier League.

29 min: Salah rolls a pass across the face of the Villa box, teeing up an opportunity for Diaz, who is in fine goalscoring form after his midweek hat-trick against the champions of Germany … but this time takes a fresh-air swipe. Ah the vicissitudes of top-flight sport.

27 min: Nunez nearly doubles Kári Tulinius’s joy, but can’t rise high enough to head home Salah’s cross from the right. Had the ball been delivered a couple of inches lower, Nunez was surely bulging the net from six yards.

25 min: Watkins has a whack from the right-hand edge of the Liverpool D. He drags the shot harmlessly wide left. “I’m not a Liverpool fan, but the Premier League is more fun when Darwin Núñez scores goals,” writes Kári Tulinius. “It’s also fun when he inexplicably misses sitters, so I guess he just makes football more fun by existing.”

24 min: Alexander-Arnold goes down, and can’t continue. Bradley comes on in his place. England squad re-jig coming up, you’d have thought.

22 min: Watkins tries to respond quickly by taking on Konate down the left. He enters the box only to be shouldered powerfully off the ball. He swan-dives preposterously, looking for a penalty that’s never going to be awarded. Indeed the referee awards a free kick against Watkins … but doesn’t book him for simulation. That’s all a bit weird.

21 min: Bailey is very fortunate that Nunez scored, because he was surely off otherwise.

GOAL! Liverpool 1-0 Aston Villa (Nunez 20)

19 min: Tielemans can’t get a shot away from the edge of the Liverpool box, but the hosts are panicking a bit, and Konate needlessly shanks a simple clearance backwards and out for a corner. Tielemans to take.

17 min: Villa again with the slow restart, with Martinez cast as pantomime villain. They’re getting under the skin of the home fans, which is surely a big part of it. This sort of thing doesn’t always go well for Liverpool, as anyone old enough to remember the Gerrard slip game can attest. Jose and Chelsea did a proper number on Anfield that famous afternoon.

15 min: Konsa embarks on a dribbling odyssey down the right, and reaches the edge of the Liverpool box before running slap-bang into Robertson. Villa soon come again, Ramsey nearly making space to shoot on the left, Tielemans then crossing deep for Bailey to head over. Villa right in this now, after a slow start, and looking dangerous.

13 min: Those two Villa attacks have quietened the Liverpool crowd a bit. Task one completed by the visitors.

11 min: Villa show in attack for the first time. Watkins picks up possession on the left-hand corner of the Liverpool box, opens his body and curls a decent effort towards the top-right corner but over the bar. Kelleher had it covered. Villa soon come again, Ramsey advancing down the left channel. Digne makes a dummy run, which Alexander-Arnold follows. Suddenly there’s a huge gap! Ramsey enters the box and shoots, but the ball’s blocked the moment it leaves his boot, Gravenberch sliding across. That’s fine last-ditch defending by the midfielder.

9 min: The corner comes in, and the whistle goes as a result of Liverpool’s over-enthusiastic pushing and shoving. Then Martinez and Torres take an absurd amount of time over the restart. This is already getting old. At least they didn’t somehow manage to concede a penalty this time. Mings on the bench, well out of harm’s way.

8 min: Jones rolls down the right channel in the hope of releasing Mac Allister. Digne is forced to telescope a leg to divert out for the first corner of the game. Robertson to take.

7 min: Gravenberch spins Tielemans and is clipped for his trouble. Villa may already be approaching the point where the next one earns a booking. Liverpool get the ball rolling, Diaz juggling his way down the left and dinking infield, but his cross doesn’t find Mac Allister, waiting six yards out to head home.

5 min: Alexander-Arnold slips Salah into space down the right. Salah drifts into the box, shapes to curl towards the top left, as he so often does, but instead switches and aims for the bottom right instead. Torres is wise to the grift and extends a leg to block. Great play all round.

4 min: Konsa takes an age over a throw. A bit early for this sort of carry-on. “Sending big hugs commiserations to Mary Waltz as the skies darken over there,” begins Charles Antaki. “Not that we’re especially sunny over here, but at least we don’t have the drumrolls and the frightening music on the soundtrack. May the MBM be a pleasant distraction. Also Everton, but one mustn’t hope for too much.”

3 min: Salah dinks the ball past Digne to advance down the right, and is tugged back. The referee shows no interest in giving a free kick. The former Everton full-back getting away with one there.

2 min: Liverpool on the front foot immediately. Salah floats a pass down the right for Nunez, who shields the ball before falling over in the box with Carlos behind him. There’s minimal contact, and Nunez was looking for it, so the referee’s not interested. A muted claim fizzles out quickly.

Now back to that beautiful football noise … and it’s Liverpool who get the ball rolling. They’re kicking towards the Kop in this first half.

Once the last strains of You’ll Never Walk Alone disappear into the night sky, a lone bugler plays the Last Post, the night before Remembrance Sunday. Exquisitely played, met with perfect silence, then a warm ovation.

The teams are out! Liverpool all red, Aston Villa all white. A bit like Real Madrid have come to town, three weeks early. A cracking few-pints-in atmosphere at Anfield, which reportedly rocked during the second half against Brighton last weekend. It’s usually one louder when the lights are on. The Villa support making their fair contribution to the noise as well. Here’s to everyone keeping it up.

Pre-match postbag. “I’m one of many Liverpool fans who are growing to love Slot’s mixture of confidence and clarity when dealing with the media. Latest example being your quote from him on facing teams who come with a specific plan. Klopp was refreshingly human when he arrived; Slot seems to have gone one further managing to be both reserved, warm, good humoured and illuminating (up to a point). Let’s see if his demeanour survives when we inevitably hit a bump in the road, but for now I’m enjoying it immensely” – Tony Barr

“One key to Liverpool’s success is their masterful use of space in the midfield. Case in point: Mac Allister. No, not MacAllister. Mac. Space. Allister. Just enough room to slot the ball through and break the opponents’ line” – Peter Oh

“The night time kick off is terrible for the last train back to Brum is at half nine. However, what better excuse to experience the delights of Bold Street, Matthew Street and Concert Square in what the locals call the greatest city in the world?” – Bill Preston

“Greetings from Occupied Trump America. PL football and Guardian MBM are part of my anti-depressant regime to get through the next four years. It made another so-so Everton performance this morning seem OK. Liverpool-AV should be a banger” – Mary Waltz

Unai Emery speaks to TNT. “We are managing every player … we are confident with Ollie Watkins … even if he is not scoring he is successful in everything we need … he is very important not only for scoring goals but everything else as well … Jhon Duran is getting comfortable … hopefully we can use both … our support is fantastic … we are playing for them.”

Tonight’s 5.30pm kick-off has just finished … and, now then, how about this for a result … Brighton & Hove Albion 2-1 Manchester City. That’s the four-in-a-row champions’ fourth defeat in a row in all competitions. City haven’t been on such a miserable run since the spring of 2006, when Stuart Pearce was manager and Micah Richards was an 18-year-old prodigy just breaking through. That run eventually stretched to six defeats on the spin, and when they snapped that sorry sequence they went and lost their next four as well. Don’t expect things to pan out like that again this time, even if their next three games are against Spurs, Feyenoord and … Liverpool, who now have a chance to stretch their lead at the top of the Premier League table to five points.

Slot also goes some way to explaining why Liverpool have been slow starters in most matches this season, picking up speed significantly in the second half. “There are many things we can do better … the threshold is quite high for us … I see that certain things are done better by other teams than us … you wonder which ones? … that’s what we talk about during the week … hopefully we keep improving … it’s necessary in a difficult league like this … Xabi Alonso has played the same style for one, two years I think … he came here playing Boniface as a left winger … that is a compliment to our players … every team that comes here feels they need a special plan … the good thing for us is that’s mostly the first time they play it, so you could argue it’s not an advantage for them to do that … but they feel it’s an advantage … in the first half we have to adjust a bit … then it’s a disadvantage for us that we have only worked together for three or four months, because if you work with a team for three or four years, you’ve faced every system … everyone just knows what to do … sometimes now we need half-time for that … but it’s a matter of time before we’re adjusting faster than that.”

Arne Slot speaks to TNT Sports. “Everyone has mainly focused on our results, which have been good … you also enjoy your time if you work with people that you really like and the staff and everybody at Liverpool welcomed me and my staff a lot … if you then also have the results then you enjoy your time at the club … I expected Luis Diaz to do well but to do so well was even for me a bit of a surprise … if you have four attackers like we have, you are always a bit tempted, who should you play? … Cody has played so many games that we thought these three should be the best pick … we will know after the game if that was the right choice to make … in every decision a lot goes into it … confidence … how much they have played recently … this is now the second time Curtis has been lined up … Macca had some rest in the League Cup game … Szoboszlai would have been a good pick as well … ideally we will start the game like we end it … but that is easier said than done … our opponent is also really fresh when the game starts.”

Liverpool make two changes to their starting XI from the 4-0 win over Bayer Leverkusen on Tuesday. Darwin Núñez and Andrew Robertson replace Cody Gakpo and Kostas Tsimikas.

Aston Villa make four changes after their 1-0 defeat at Club Brugge on Wednesday. Pau Torres, Lucas Digne, Amadou Onana and Jacob Ramsey come in for Ian Maatsen, Boubacar Kamara, the unfortunate Tyrone Mings, and captain John McGinn.

The teams

Preamble