Liverpool 3-2 Aston Villa
by James Nalton
at Anfield

DANIEL STURRIDGE continued his incredible goalscoring record for Liverpool, as his brace helped see off Aston Villa at Anfield on Saturday.

Rudy Gestede netted a brace of his own, but a James Milner goal just over a minute into the game gave Villa an uphill task from the outset.

The England midfielder latched onto a pass from Philippe Coutinho before letting fly with his left foot and finding the bottom corner from outside the area.

Liverpool dominated possession, but Villa threatened on the break. Gestede had a golden opportunity to score in the first half but blazed his shot wide.

The home side doubled their lead 15 minutes into the second half, when Milner played a clever pass to Sturridge who fired a sublime left-foot volley past Brad Guzan. This goal sparked the game into life, and Villa replied when Gestede tapped in at close range from Alan Hutton’s cross.

Just a minute later, Liverpool regained their two-goal advantage when Coutinho’s ingenious back-heel found Sturridge who slotted home cooly with his right foot.

Then, rounding off a flurry of four goals in just over 10 minutes, Gestede rose to head home Jordan Amavi’s cross. Even if Liverpool’s defence were stood on each other's shoulders, they still wouldn’t have stopped him.

Liverpool hung onto their lead, and despite Brendan Rodgers’ acknowledgement that “there’s obviously a group of people who don’t want me here, to be the manager,” he was in a resilient mood, commenting: “It was a really good performance from us in terms of the creativity and the effort the players put into the game.”

Villa boss Tim Sherwood spoke of his disappointment: “When you come to Anfield and you score two goals, you expect to take something from the game, but we didn’t do that.”