Aston Villa vs Liverpool: Preview, teams news, tips & more as Ngumoha looks to shine against the Villains

The Scene is Set for a Champions League Showdown

Rarely does a mid-May Premier League fixture carry quite this much weight, but when Aston Villa host Liverpool at Villa Park on Friday evening, the stakes could not be any higher for either club.

Both sides arrive level on 59 points, sharing identical records of 17 wins, eight draws and 11 defeats after 36 matches, with goal difference the only thing separating them and Liverpool holding a slim advantage of plus 12 to Villa’s plus four.

With fifth place confirmed as good enough for Champions League qualification in 2025-26, a win for the home side would seal their return to Europe’s biggest stage via league position with a game to spare, and remove the anxiety currently surrounding their ambitious project under Unai Emery.

For Liverpool, the picture is no less urgent, and the sight of a defending Premier League champion still uncertain of its Champions League status heading into the final fortnight of the season tells its own uncomfortable story about how dramatically the Reds’ fortunes have shifted under Arne Slot.

Adding another layer to this already fascinating fixture is the presence of Rio Ngumoha, the 17-year-old Nigerian-British talent who has lit up Anfield this season and become perhaps the one genuinely positive narrative from what has otherwise been a deeply frustrating campaign on Merseyside.

Born on 29 August 2008 to Nigerian and Guadeloupean parents, Ngumoha joined Liverpool from Chelsea in the summer of 2024 in a move that caused considerable friction between the two clubs, with a tribunal later ordering Liverpool to pay a minimum of £2.8 million in compensation for his development.

He has more than justified the investment, making his Champions League debut as the youngest Liverpool player in the competition’s history in September 2025, before going on to score the club’s youngest-ever goal at Anfield in a 2-0 victory over Fulham in April, beating a record previously held by Raheem Sterling.

Match Preview

In any other season, finishing this high in the Premier League table would represent genuine progress for both clubs, yet the context surrounding each tells a very different story.

For Aston Villa, this campaign has been a tale of two halves.

They produced an extraordinary 11-game winning run across all competitions earlier in the season, equalling a club record not seen since 1914, and as recently as late January sat 10 points clear of Liverpool in the table with a very real prospect of challenging for third place.

Since then, a gradual erosion of that lead has brought Liverpool level, and a run of three league games without a win, culminating in a 2-2 draw at already-relegated Burnley last Sunday, has turned what looked like comfortable qualification into a nervy finale.

The Burnley draw was particularly galling given it came three days after Villa produced one of their finest European performances of the season, sweeping Nottingham Forest aside 4-0 at Villa Park to reach the club’s first major European final in 44 years.

Emery made only three changes for the trip to Turf Moor and admitted his players were tired, a reality that contributed to a sluggish display and an Emiliano Martínez error that gifted Burnley their opening goal in the eventual 2-2 draw.

The Europa League final against Freiburg in Budapest is now just five days after this match on May 20, and that scheduling reality will shape every tactical decision Emery makes on Friday.

There is also a nagging concern about Villa’s away form this season.

Despite the strength they have shown at Villa Park, they have gone winless in their last six away Premier League games, winning just once on the road in 2026, that coming at Newcastle in January.

Friday’s fixture at home, however, puts them in considerably more comfortable territory: Villa Park has been a fortress this season, with the Midlands club taking 10 league wins at home across the campaign.

For Liverpool, the season has been characterised by a catalogue of injuries to key players and a noticeable drop in the offensive and defensive metrics that made them champions last spring.

The Opta data tells a damning story: for the first time since Slot took charge, Liverpool’s rolling non-penalty expected goals against has exceeded their expected goals for across multiple consecutive matches, a statistical sign of a team that has lost its edge at both ends of the pitch.

The 1-1 draw with Chelsea at Anfield the previous weekend was met with audible booing from large sections of the home support, most notably when Ngumoha was substituted, a moment that encapsulated the frustration of a fanbase watching a title defence collapse.

It is also telling that both sides drew against weaker opposition in their most recent league outings, amplifying the pressure on this direct head-to-head as the decisive contest in the race for Champions League qualification.

Head-to-Head

This is a fixture steeped in history, with the two clubs having met 206 times in all official competitions, Liverpool holding a dominant overall record of 104 wins to Villa’s 59, with 43 draws.

The reverse fixture earlier this campaign, played at Anfield on November 1, ended 2-0 to Liverpool, with Slot’s side looking far more like their championship-winning selves in the autumn months before injuries and poor form took hold.

The 2024-25 season produced two contrasting meetings: Liverpool won 2-0 at Anfield in November 2024, before Villa earned a 2-2 draw on home soil the following February, with Trent Alexander-Arnold’s deflected late strike denying Emery’s side all three points.

The penultimate weekend of 2023-24 brought one of the most dramatic recent chapters in this fixture, as Villa fought back from two goals down inside the last 10 minutes to earn a remarkable 3-3 draw at Villa Park, a result that came on Jurgen Klopp’s last away trip in charge of the Reds.

Villa’s last league win over Liverpool came in that famous 7-2 drubbing at Villa Park in October 2020, one of the most shocking Premier League results of the modern era.

It is worth noting that Liverpool’s recent dominance in this fixture has largely come at Anfield: Villa Park itself has produced draws in each of the last two visits, suggesting the home crowd and familiar surroundings represent a genuine leveller for Emery’s side.

Team News

Aston Villa: Outs and Doubts

Unai Emery has two significant injury concerns heading into the match, with Amadou Onana remaining a doubt after the midfielder sustained a calf injury in Villa’s Europa League defeat to Nottingham Forest in April and has yet to return to full training.

Boubacar Kamara has been out since January with a knee problem and will not feature, meaning the midfield pivot responsibilities fall heavily on Youri Tielemans, who has been one of the more consistent performers in the engine room since his return from injury.

Ollie Watkins, who has 11 Premier League goals this season, is fit and available, and will be crucial given his ability to stretch defences and his growing partnership with Morgan Rogers, who himself has nine league goals.

Emiliano Martínez made an uncharacteristic error against Burnley but remains first choice in goal, and is unlikely to be dropped for a match of this magnitude.

Emery will have a decision to make over how much to rotate with the Europa League final in mind, but the manager himself stated after the Burnley draw that he is “so motivated” for this fixture, and given the points on offer, a strong starting lineup is expected.

Ross Barkley is expected to partner Tielemans in the double pivot, with Emiliano Buendía operating as the number ten behind Watkins; John McGinn is fit but may be held in reserve given the Europa League final only five days away.

One player to watch is Matty Cash, who has chipped in with three league goals from right back and whose forward runs have been a constant source of danger against teams that sit deep.

Liverpool: Outs and Doubts

Arne Slot heads to Villa Park with a significant injury crisis that would test the depth of any squad.

Mohamed Salah remains sidelined with a hamstring injury and will miss the match, a blow that goes beyond the obvious attacking threat and speaks to the broader problem of Liverpool lacking reliable match-winners in key moments.

Hugo Ekitike’s Achilles injury has ended his season entirely, while Alisson Becker is dealing with a muscle injury. Giorgi Mamardashvili will man the sticks.

Alexander Isak, who has been excellent when fit this season will also fancy a place in the starting eleven.

Wataru Endo, Conor Bradley, Stefan Bajcetic and Giovanni Leoni are all confirmed absentees, stripping the squad of both depth and experience across multiple positions.

Ibrahima Konaté also seemed to have picked up an issue in the last game against Chelsea. A final decision on his involvement is pending.

The midfield, at least, remains relatively intact and should see Dominik Szoboszlai, Curtis Jones and Harvey Elliott compete for places, while the front line is likely to feature Cody Gakpo alongside Ngumoha.

Ngumoha earned a 9/10 rating against Fulham and the booing when he was withdrawn at Anfield last weekend suggests supporters increasingly see him as the team’s most exciting attacking outlet.

Star Players

The Managers

Unai Emery (Aston Villa)

It is difficult to overstate what Unai Emery has built at Villa Park since arriving in October 2022.

The Spaniard reached his 100th win with the club in March with a 2-0 victory over Lille in the Europa League round of 16, becoming only the third manager in Aston Villa’s history to achieve that milestone.

He guided the club into the Champions League for the first time in 41 years by finishing fourth in the Premier League in 2023-24, then took them to the quarter-finals in 2024-25, and earlier this month guided them to their first European final in 44 years.

It is a remarkable transformation for a club that was hovering above the relegation zone when he replaced Steven Gerrard in October 2022.

There is, however, a complicating factor: since beating Liverpool in the 2016 Europa League final with Sevilla, the Reds have become something of a bogey side for Emery as a manager, and he will need to break that pattern in the most high-stakes circumstances yet.

His men head into Friday with 10 home Premier League wins this season, and with the crowd roaring, his preference for a compact, well-organised 4-2-3-1 that transitions quickly will be well-suited to pinning back a depleted Liverpool side.

Arne Slot (Liverpool)

A year ago, Arne Slot was parading the Premier League trophy around Anfield; 12 months on, he faces the prospect of missing out on Champions League football altogether.

The Dutchman has overseen a dramatic regression in Liverpool’s fortunes this term, with the club’s xG data, injury record and fan sentiment all painting a picture of a team that has regressed significantly from its title-winning peak.

Liverpool have confirmed publicly that they intend to continue with Slot into next season despite the booing that greeted the Chelsea draw, but the pressure is mounting, and the manager will know that failing to secure top-five football would make his position significantly more uncomfortable.

Slot’s best Liverpool sides have been compact, possession-based and dangerous on the counter, but with Salah, Ekitike, Alisson and a host of other senior figures missing, what he deploys on Friday might look very different from his first-choice model.

Tactical Preview

Emery will almost certainly set up in his favoured 4-2-3-1 shape, using Tielemans and Barkley as a double pivot designed to provide structure without sacrificing the ability to build from deep.

Rogers and Buendía will be asked to press aggressively in the channels, targeting what looks like a makeshift midfield in the Liverpool half, while Watkins operates as a permanent focal point to hold the ball and bring others into play.

The key tactical battle will likely be between Rogers and Curtis Jones on the Liverpool right, a duel that could swing the game either way.

Liverpool will look to exploit the channels behind Villa’s high defensive line, something Ngumoha and Gakpo are both capable of in transition, and with the presence of a reliable centre-forward like Isak, they will likely convert when they do find space.

Villa’s biggest tactical weapon in this match could be their set piece delivery: their route-one physicality from corners and free kicks, where Konsa and Torres offer real aerial presence, against a Liverpool side that has been vulnerable to exactly these situations in recent weeks.

The pace of Ngumoha is the one Liverpool asset that Villa cannot fully prepare for, and if he is handed freedom on the left flank, he has the ability to turn this match on its head regardless of the broader tactical picture.

Betting Tips & Predictions

Final Score Prediction