LiverpoolWorld's George Priestman previews Liverpool vs Aston Villa from the AXA Training Centre.
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00:00This is George Priest from Fort Liverpool World reporting after Arnie Slott had just
00:03spoken to the media ahead of their game against Aston Villa in the Premier League this weekend.
00:08It's been an extraordinary run of form for Liverpool under Slott, topping the Champions
00:12League format so far and topping the Premier League as well, currently having a two-point
00:17gap over Manchester City and they'll be hoping to maintain that gap with a victory against
00:21Aston Villa this weekend.
00:22There wasn't any new team news to come out of today's press conference, the only thing
00:27we got was Diogo Jota will be back at some point in the first one or two weeks after
00:32the international break and the same is likely for Alisson Becker who's been out since October
00:37and Javier Leite who's been out since late August and obviously Federico Chiesa as well.
00:42Short injury problems across the last few seasons, he's been out since making his first
00:46start in the EFL Cup win over West Ham in September and it's likely we'll see him back
00:50after the international break but again, there is no date for him at the current time.
00:54Of course, fans are still extremely happy since the win over Bayer Leverkusen in the
00:59week.
01:00Liverpool were absolutely sensational in the 4-0 win, scoring all four goals in the second
01:03half and handing Xabi Alonso's side only their third defeat in 69 games.
01:09It's such a brilliant achievement to take it to a team like Leverkusen and make them
01:13look in the end fairly ordinary and Liverpool at Anfield was incredible, what an atmosphere,
01:19what a night and now they go into this Villa game as heavy favourites given the Unai Emery
01:23side are struggling for form at the moment.
01:26One player absolutely starred in the win over Leverkusen was Curtis Jones.
01:31He's currently on the best run of form that we've seen across his career so far.
01:35He's forced his way into the Liverpool team now, ahead of Dominic Sobisai who has probably
01:39been the only Liverpool player to really struggle you would say with this brilliant start to
01:44the season but Jones is flying right now and Slott was asked about him and he claimed that
01:49maybe him becoming a father might be the reason why his form has turned around.
01:54He knows that he's a fantastic player, he called him brilliant on the ball,
01:58has plenty of technical qualities and Lee Carsley said the same as well,
02:01claimed he was one of the best players that he's ever worked with,
02:04the current England interim manager and Jones will be off with England for the international
02:10break after the game against Ville this weekend which he should expect to start
02:15given the form that he is currently showing in midfield.
02:18One player who obviously stole the headlines on Tuesday night was Luis Diaz with that second
02:23half hat-trick, the first of his senior career and he has been absolutely sensational this
02:28season, really raising his quality in front of goal and his tactical tweak that saw him
02:35sort of play between left wing and centre forward, Arnie Slott spoke about it in the press conference,
02:39that's a new addition to his game but obviously that quality in front of goal
02:43is far improved. His goal conversion has gone from 9% last season in the league to 29% this
02:48time around so it's a huge difference and Liverpool are reaping the benefits of his form.
02:53In terms of Aston Villa, they find themselves in pretty poor form, losing
02:56three games on the bounce, that included an AFL Cup defeat to Aston Villa, a heavy 4-1 defeat to
03:02Tottenham and of course the defeat to Bruges during the week as well. They were rotated in
03:07the week with a couple of changes, it's likely we'll see the likes of Paul Torres come back in,
03:12Jacob Ramsey and there's a question mark again with the strike force, will John
03:17Durant come in after his early season form but Villa are definitely wounded at the moment,
03:22losing three on the bounce which is a rare poor run of form for them under Unai Emery
03:27and it's going to be interesting to see how they cope with Liverpool at Anfield because
03:30they're absolutely thriving right now and they could well be blown away given the current form
03:35of both sides. For Liverpool though, they just want to maintain this winning run and go into
03:40the international break with a win and maintain themselves at the top of that table ahead of
03:44Manchester City. Of course, there's seven points clear of Arsenal as it stands and they want to
03:48keep that lead for as long as possible but given current form,
03:52they stand as heavy favourites to win this weekend against Villa.