Aston Villa beat Liverpool 4-2 to seal a Champions League place Football News

Liverpool’s woes deepen as Ollie Watkins scores twice to give his side a huge win at Villa Park.

Ollie Watkins scored twice as Aston Villa cruised to a 4-2 Premier League win over Liverpool to seal next season’s Champions League qualification and leave their visitors looking over their shoulders at the chasing pack.

Victory on Friday moves Villa into fourth place with 62 points from their 37 games, leapfrogging their rivals, who have 59 points from the same matches.

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Liverpool remain in danger of being caught by Bournemouth and Brighton in the race for a Champions League place as they slump to their 12th defeat of the season and one point from their last nine.

Morgan Rogers gave Villa a first-half lead before Virgil van ‌Dijk equalized for Liverpool early in the second half and then added another in added time.

But Watkins’ double and a fourth from John McGinn sealed the win for Unai Emery’s side, who go into Wednesday’s Europa League final against Freiburg in high spirits.

“We had to cross the line,” McGinn told Sky Sports. It helps us to be happy and enjoy Wednesday properly.

“(Watkins) was obviously disappointed in March (after being left out of the England squad) but if it set him back, he responded very well.

“We are lucky to have him, what he has done for this club over the last few seasons has been incredible.

Villa travel to Istanbul to face Freiburg with one of their biggest goals already achieved this season, and the chance to lift silverware to end their campaign.

The players took the lead in the 42nd minute against the run of play. Lucas Digne found Rogers in space on the left-hand side of the box and the striker curled into the far corner.

Liverpool equalized in the 52nd minute when Van Dijk turned in Dominik Szoboszlai’s free-kick, 17-year-old striker Rio Ngumoha hit the bottom of the post from the edge of the box.

But Szoboszlai’s slide gifted Watkins with a second goal for the home side, and Emiliano Buendia hit Liverpool’s post with a curling shot as Villa looked set to score again.

And so it looked like Watkins fired his second through a rebound from close range.

McGinn fired home a beautiful shot to make it 4-1 in the 89th minute, before Van Dijk’s second goal brought honor to the line.

Liverpool manager Arne Slot said he did not feel any pressure after the defeat but admitted his side were scoring too many soft goals.

“It’s not about me, it’s that we’re disappointed with the result,” Slot told the BBC. “I spoke yesterday about this (my future) and that’s enough.

“Our focus for the Brentford game (next weekend) is to make sure the fans support us by starting the game aggressively and well.”

Villa scored four times on Friday but could have a few more goals as they chip away at Liverpool’s defence.

“We’ve conceded a lot of goals this season, which you can hardly believe unless you’ve had them and that’s what we did today,” he said.

“Villa were the better team and the game got away from us.”